The European Commission published on April 4 a report on Competition Policy for the digital era that may be less damaging for Facebook than for Google, Amazon and Apple. Proposals include imposing obligations on the internet platforms as essential facilities, requiring data interoperability between rivals and a presumption that some activities are anticompetitive unless the companies prove otherwise.
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Spotify filed on March 13 an antitrust complaint against Apple for allegedly leveraging its market power on the app store to limit Spotify’s access to iOS users. Yet, EU precedents on music streaming app services suggest that Apple may not be dominant in some relevant markets and if this is still true, Apple’s practices, while damaging for Spotify, won’t be anticompetitive.
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Payments are probably the first market where start-ups successfully challenged traditional banks. Companies such as Monzo, Revolut, TransferWise, Stripe or HiFx quickly gained market share for local and international payments offering low or no transaction fees. These new services obliged banks to adopt new digital strategies to remain competitive. Now, lending and wealth management are the next sectors where startups and digital platforms are quickly stepping up.
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