iPhones may soon accept contactless payments, no card reader required
Apple’s working on a way to let iPhones accept in-person payments,Bloombergreports. The feature will presumably use NFC and has been in the works for a few years, according to Bloomberg’s sources. It may begin rolling out in the next few months, potentially in the iOS 15.4 beta.
The feature is the fruit of Apple’s 2020 acquisition of Mobeewave, a Canadian mobile payments startup. While it’s already easy to send and receive money using Apple Pay (the feature is even baked into Apple’s Messages app), it isn’t currently possible to accept NFC payments on iPhones without the use of additional hardware like a Square reader. Such accessories are generally used by small businesses, which is where a feature like this would see the most use. It’s not yet clear whether the new payments feature will be baked into Apple Pay or use a different interface.
If the feature is indeed coming in a matter of months, we’ll likely hear more about it at Apple’s next big event, which is currently expected to take place in March or early April. The event could also feature details ona new iPhone SE.
Before being acquired by Apple, Mobeewave previously worked with Samsung on the unfortunately namedSamsung POS, apoint-of-salesystem that worked in essentially the same way we expect this new Apple feature to: It allowed small businesses to accept contactless payments with just a Samsung phone. Samsung POS was piloted in Canada in 2019, but the program and its associated apps have since been discontinued.
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