First Apple Pay Alternative Arrives in Norway in a Sign of Things to Come
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Although the opening up of the App Store was the most lauded outcome of the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) earlier this year, the new regulation did far more than force Apple to allow alternative app marketplaces. The company was also required to allow third-party browsers to use their own rendering engines and open its previously Apple Pay-only NFC and Secure Element hardware to third-party wallet apps.
That last requirement for openness has flown mostly under the radar, likely because it’s meaningless until some third-party apps get on board — and there haven’t been any clamoring to take advantage of it. However, that’s changed this week as a Norwegian company now has the distinction of being the first to offer an alternative to Apple Pay and the iPhone Wallet app.
The new solution comes from a payment app called Vipps, which can now replace Apple Pay entirely for users in Norway. While it doesn’t yet support traditional Visa and Mastercard payment cards, the company promises those will arrive “well before” the summer holidays, allowing users to pay with Vipps when travelling internationally. For now, the service is compatible with Norway’s national BankAxept cards, which makes it usable at “nine out of ten” retailers and service providers in the country, and money can be transferred into Vipps from over 40 Norwegian banks.
We have fought for a long time to compete on equal terms with Apple. That is why it feels almost surreal to finally launch our very own solution. This will now be a rare exciting battle between the world’s strongest brand and Vipps.Rune Garborg, head of Vipps MobilePay (via Google Translate)
The BankAxept cards can be used for tap-to-pay transactions and online purchases from an iPhone. Thanks to EU regulations and changes in iOS 18.1 and later, they can also be set as the default payment app on the iPhone, replacing Apple Wallet entirely.
Vipps is just the first in what’s likely a long lineup of third-party payment providers looking to get away from Apple Pay and craft their own solutions. While Apple initially only ceded the mobile payments playing field in Europe, the iPhone maker announced in August that it was opening up the NFC and Secure Element (SE) outside the EU in iOS 18.1 for developers that can demonstrate that it will do so securely and in line with proper financial standards.
In addition to alternative mobile payment apps, these changes also open the door to car keys, home keys, transit passes, corporate badges, student IDs, event tickets, and more. Most of these can already be stored in Apple Wallet, but the new NFC and SE APIs will allow the use of these cards and passes directly from approved third-party apps.
The changes aren’t quite a free-for-all, as developers will still need to enter into a special agreement with Apple to get an “entitlement” that allows their apps to access the NFC and SE hardware. This will ensure that they have written policies and procedures on how sensitive personal data is handled, proper privacy policies, and how it will handle potential security issues if they come up. This stuff is par for the course for a bank or financial institution, and Apple isn’t setting any unique standards here. However, this could make things more complex for developers who want to create apps to handle other things like event tickets.
With iOS 18.2, Apple is also taking things a step further with a new Default Apps section in Settings that will let you assign something other than Wallet as your “Contactless App” — the app that comes up when you double-press the side button or hold your iPhone near an NFC reader.
As of this writing, the only app that appears there is the Wallet app. However, that’s likely where Vipps will show up in Norway, and we’ll surely see others joining the list in the coming months. The new NFC & SE Platform APIs in iOS 18.1 are available to developers based in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
