Apple Puts Big Money Into Mobile Payments Lobbying
A company like Apple can be a strange animal, particularly when it gets involved in politics. A new report says that Apple recently spent the second-most money it’s ever spent on lobbying efforts, a hefty $2.14 million in the first quarter of 2018, specifically to target the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Apple’s focus of that seven-figure spend? Mobile payments.
The reports note that Apple pressed the CFPB, along with the new Republican leadership, to get out from under the weight of some of the regulations in the field affecting the company’s mobile payments operations. Apple didn’t spend that $2.14 million all in one place, though, as reports suggest Apple also hit the Treasury Department and Congress itself with some of that lobbying cash. Additionally, Apple also pursued other issues, like net neutrality policies.
The mobile payments rule Apple targeted reportedly required mobile wallet operators to make clear fees involved, and also work with consumers who found errors and unauthorized charges on their accounts. Apple reportedly wanted changes to a rule that made it tougher for users to link credit cards to mobile wallets.
Former CFPB enforcement attorney Jonathan Engel noted “Apple is obviously a huge player in this space and has been for a while. I think they had a pretty good idea of where they stood with the prior administration, which was open to mobile payments technology and saw it as a way to give access to underbanked people. My guess is Apple wanted to see where they stood with the new administration.”
This is a perfectly reasonable assessment, and pulling some regulatory weight off business does tend to be helpful. While a certain amount of regulation is always necessary to ensure that businesses—or even people—with the most resources don’t simply get to run hog-wild over regular people, generally the less regulation, the better is a good rule of thumb. Letting the market handle some issues of regulation tends to leave us all better off.
Apple’s moves here seem valid enough, but it’s worth keeping an eye on. A company with the kind of liquid capability that Apple has could do a lot of harm under the right circumstances, but in this case, it looks like a sound regulatory change that helps everybody in the end.