Apple Pay Victory in Australia and other Digital Transactions News briefs

• CORRECTION: The March 30 issue of Digital Transactions News mischaracterized the business in which eProcessing Network LLC engages. It is a payment gateway. DTN regrets the error.

• In a victory for Apple Inc. and its Apple Pay mobile-payments service, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission denied a request from four big Australian banks to collectively bargain with Apple and collectively boycott Apple Pay. The banks wanted to negotiate with Apple for access to the near-field communication (NFC) controller in Apple’s iPhones, and so-called reasonable access terms to Apple’s App Store, enabling them to offer their own digital wallets to iPhone customers in competition with Apple’s Wallet, without using Apple Pay. “The ACCC is not satisfied, on balance, that the likely benefits from the proposed conduct outweigh the likely detriments,” ACCC chairman Rod Sims said in a statement. “We are concerned that the proposed conduct is likely to reduce or distort competition in a number of markets.”

• Starbucks Corp. will open a dedicated mobile order and pay store next week at its Seattle headquarters as part of a test on how to serve convenience-oriented customers, Reuters reported.

• VocaLink, a U.K.-based financial-technology company that is in the process of being acquired by Mastercard Inc., is teaming up with BancTec, a unit of transaction-processing solutions provider SourceHOV, to build and run the infrastructure for an industrywide check-clearing system in the U.K. based on check images.

• Chosen Payments said it will provide payments processing at the National Hot Rod Association’s headquarters and all four NHRA-owned race tracks.

• Payments consultancy Mercator Advisory Group released the “A More Competitive Debit Network Battlefield” report that provides insight into the current debit card transaction market.

• Erika Brown Lee has joined Mastercard as senior vice president and assistant general counsel for privacy and data protection. She comes to the company from the U.S. Department of Justice.