Australia's government said on Monday it would bring Apple Pay, Google Pay and other digital payment services under the same regulatory umbrella as credit cards and other payments as part of legislation set to be introduced to parliament this week.
Apple Pay and similar services make payments more secure by completely hiding your actual card number from the merchant, meaning it is literally impossible to compromise your card number (can’t steal what’s not there in the first place) and it does so without introducing any new vulnerabilities or parties to the transaction.
Cool to know! What I’m wondering, though, is what changes the government are making, specifically. Why do they think it’s bad, and what are they changing.
At this point it doesn’t actually seem like they’re proposing any specific changes at all. The draft changes some definitions in a way that Apple Pay is included as a “participant” and gives the Reserve Bank of Australia regulatory authority over it under the Payment Systems Regulation Act. Considering the fact that Australia is the country that first pushed the link tax (basically a way to make Facebook give money to Rupert Murdoch and friends just because), I’m not terribly optimistic.
Apple Pay and similar services make payments more secure by completely hiding your actual card number from the merchant, meaning it is literally impossible to compromise your card number (can’t steal what’s not there in the first place) and it does so without introducing any new vulnerabilities or parties to the transaction.
Cool to know! What I’m wondering, though, is what changes the government are making, specifically. Why do they think it’s bad, and what are they changing.
At this point it doesn’t actually seem like they’re proposing any specific changes at all. The draft changes some definitions in a way that Apple Pay is included as a “participant” and gives the Reserve Bank of Australia regulatory authority over it under the Payment Systems Regulation Act. Considering the fact that Australia is the country that first pushed the link tax (basically a way to make Facebook give money to Rupert Murdoch and friends just because), I’m not terribly optimistic.