Norwegian mobile payments application Vipps is launching a direct competitor to Apple Pay in its home market, with the new product available on iPhone.
Christened ‘Vipps MobilePay’, the new payment method can be used for money transfers between different accounts, online payments, in-store payments, settling, money requesting, money raising for private purposes, gift sending and paying organisations and associations.
The method has been made available to the national banks SpareBank 1 and DNB, as well as 40 other local institutions. Vipps, which is itself an initiative of several Norwegian banks including the abovementioned SpareBank 1 and DNB, has plans to introduce the method to other banks in the country.
Notably, the app has stated its intention to directly compete with Apple Pay, one of the world’s leading contactless payment methods which has taken off significantly over recent years off the back of the success of the iPhone and the general move towards cashless payments accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rune Garborg, CEO of Vipps MobilePay, said: “We have fought for years to be able to compete on equal footing with Apple, and it feels almost surreal to finally be able to launch our very own solution. This will now be a very exciting battle between the world’s biggest brand and Vipps.”
Vipps will look to challenge Apple’s dominance in contactless payments in Norway, but it has plans to roll out its new feature internally. Initially, Vipps MobilePay will go live on card terminals accepting Bank Axept cards – BankAxept being Norway/s national payments system.
The remaining terminals will be covered when Vipps takes its contactless method live with Visa and Mastercard cards, which will also enable worldwide coverage. The company plans to launch the tap-to-pay solution in neighbouring Denmark, Finland and Sweden in 2025.
An important factor to note is that Apple’s own technology has enabled this competition to its market leadership. Earlier this year, a long-running EU antitrust case was settled when Apple agreed to open up its Near-Field Communication (NFC) technology, AKA ‘tap and go’, to other businesses. This has enabled the likes of Vipps to better develop their own tap and go payments platforms.
“We believe that Vipps users find it advantageous to only have to deal with one payment app and finally have the opportunity to use Vipps in situations where they would normally use their plastic card,” Garborg continued.
“After Apple opened up, it has been important for us to launch as quickly as possible, to meet tough competition. However, we will continuously add more simplifications, international cards, and more banks.”
Given the general move towards contactless methods, in particular tap and go which is very popular among younger generations, it is unsurprising that other payments players are seeking to get in on the trend and challenge Apple’s leadership, particularly after the EU antitrust decision earlier this year.
Apple is continuing to expand globally however and will likely meet any challengers head-on. The company’s Tap to Pay for iPhone functionality has been rolled out in several countries this year – Austria, Czech Republic, Ireland, Sweden and most recently the UAE.
