According to BlockBeats, on July 12, the European Union Commission accepted Apple's commitment to open up its Near Field Communication (NFC) functionality, legalizing it for a period of ten years. Previously, Apple was accused of abusing its market dominance by monopolizing the NFC function for Apple Pay. Apple has now granted free NFC access to developers in the EU and allows other wallet applications to be set as the default payment app, lifting the restriction that was previously only for licensed payment service providers.
The core of this agreement is to access NFC in Host Card Emulation (HCE) mode, with credentials stored in the bank's private cloud rather than in the device's secure elements. This move helps to address competition concerns and opens the door for various payment methods, including Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC).
In particular, the European Central Bank (ECB) is developing an offline 'card payment' feature for the digital Euro, which requires access to the phone's secure isolation zone and NFC function. Apple's commitment will help facilitate the implementation of this feature, accelerating the promotion and application of the digital Euro.