Brazil’s competition watchdog inquires Apple over iPhone NFC restrictions

Apple has until the end of the month to respond to a set of technical and legal issues from CADE, Brazil’s competition watchdog over alleged anticompetitive rules tied to the iPhone’s NFC. Here are the details.

Apple’s NFC rules still under fire in Brazil

Last month, Apple accused Brazilian banks of seeking a “free ride” in an anticompetitive probe involving contactless payments on the iPhone.

This investigation started last year, after Brazil’s central bank (Banco Central) and banking lobby group Febraban asked CADE to investigate whether Apple was unfairly limiting third-party payment providers’ access to the iPhone’s NFC compared to its own services.

Since then, Apple has argued that there is “nothing in Brazilian law that prevents [it] from charging a fee for its services,” while noting that it holds just 10% of the country’s smartphone market and that third-party developers have had access to the iPhone’s NFC since 2024.

Apple has also argued that the Brazilian market is well served with payment options, saying Apple Pay is not “causing damage to the consumer, nor the exclusion of competitors.” So far, however, those arguments have not persuaded regulators.

This week, as reported by Folha de S. Paulo (via MacMagazine), CADE has stepped up its probe:

“On Tuesday (17), the agency sent a formal notice to the tech company, requesting information on fees, technical requirements, and contracts signed with developers in Brazil. The company has until March 30 to respond.”

As we covered last month, this inquiry touches in part on PIX, a local, free, and instant payment system launched in 2020 that is by far the country’s most used payment method:

Last year, Banco Central rolled out a contactless protocol for PIX, which Apple (contrary to Google) has refused to adopt, deeming it a non-essential feature for Brazilians, who still rely heavily on PIX payments via QR codes rather than the relatively new contactless method.

As Folha de S. Paulo notes, Apple also seems to be trying to avoid being classified as a so-called Payment Transaction Initiator, “a regulatory category supervised by the Central Bank that would entail obligations around interoperability and access.”

As of yet, Apple hasn’t commented on CADE’s latest request.

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