G+D Spotlight Podcast: Apple opens up NFC: implications for wallets

In this episode of G+D Spotlight, hosted by Jessica Antonacci, Marketing Manager, Giesecke+Devrient ePayments America, we look at the implications of this ground-breaking announcement: “Starting with iOS 18.1, developers will be able to offer NFC contactless transactions using the Secure Element from within their own apps on iPhone, separate from Apple Pay and Apple Wallet.”¹ The opening up of third-party wallets within the Apple ecosystem has wide-ranging implications for banking and payments. However, other sectors are impacted as well, including the fast-evolving identities sphere.

Akshay Warikoo, Global Lead Go-to-Market for Digital Solutions at G+D, spoke with Kristian T. Sørensen, Head of Products at IN Groupe, a global leader in digital identities. Their deep knowledge of, and decades of experience with, digital wallets, provided the context. (In Kristian’s case, he has directly or indirectly been involved with more than 30 wallets worldwide!)

While the connection to the banking and payments sphere is obvious, our guests made it clear that Apple’s freeing up of third-party wallets to use their Secure Elements via NFC on iPhones has wider implications.

Much of this comes from regulatory factors: there has been a concerted effort from the European Union (EU), for example, to get Apple to open up its ecosystem to payments in this way. In a similar vein, the bloc’s adoption of eIDAS 2.0, the European digital identity framework, makes it mandatory for member states to offer digital identity wallets to all citizens, while opening up the possibility of those wallets having a payment capability. Digital wallets for everyone, with secure authentication, that can make payments: together, these developments can have far-reaching effects in how the wallet ecosystem evolves in Europe, and beyond. 

Will there be “super wallets,” or “one wallet to rule them all”? Should banks and fintechs roll out their own wallets, or will they collaborate with each other, to maximize their chances of success? What will happen to the domestic schemes that have come to dominate the payment landscapes in their respective countries? How can the end user be incentivized to switch from a wallet they’re used to, to another one entirely?