After years of pressure from regulators, including the European Union, Apple (AAPL. O) announced on Wednesday that it would begin allowing third parties to use iPhone payment chips for transactions, a move that would put banks and other services in competition with the Apple Pay platform. Apple said it would allow developers to use NFC-powered payment chips starting with iOS 18.1, and users could also set third-party payment apps as the default system, replacing Apple Pay. However, under the new...