Third-Party Wallet Apps Can Now Use Your iPhone’s NFC

This is a big change, but sadly it’s only available to those who live in the European Union. If you’re in one of the 27 EU countries, you’ll be able to use your iPhone’s NFC with third-party wallet and payment apps. That’s been exclusive to Apple Pay until now.

It’s up to developers to take advantage of this in their apps, but European iPhone users will undoubtedly see this showing up soon in quite a few payment apps since it lets banks and other financial institutions bypass Apple’s transaction fees by letting you make payments directly through their own apps, rather than Apple Wallet.