The Federal government has drafted a new legislation to give the Reserve Bank of Australia more powers to regulate payment services.
👉 Background: With the rollout of Apple Pay and Google Wallet in Australia, mobile payments have become the norm. In fact, 35% of total card transactionsin the June quarter of this year were tap-and-go payments.
👉 What happened: Now, the Federal government has drafted a new legislation to give the Reserve Bank of Australia more powers to regulate payment services. These powers will be used to treat Apple Pay and Google the same way they treat credit cards.
👉 What else: The RBA hopes that with tighter regulation, they'll be able to promote competition and amp up innovation in financial services.
💡If you own the ecosystem, you own the customer and its monetisation. With Apple and Google owning their own operating systems, they are able to wedge themselves between their customer and wherever there is money to be made.
💡For example, Apple and Google take up to 30% of purchases made in-app. And later, they positioned themselves as an intermediary in the mobile payments landscape.
💡As of December last year, Apple generated $112 million in revenue from Australians tapping-and-going per year. So, these potential new powers given to the RBA could help the RBA actually regulate this industry... including pricing and data.
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