Apple soon to turn iPhones into tap-to-pay payment terminals

Apple will soon launch a new service that will let small businesses accept tap-to-pay payments directly on their iPhones without, importantly, requiring any extra hardware, Bloomberg News reports, citing “people with knowledge of the matter.”

Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:

The system will likely use the iPhone’s near field communications, or NFC, chip that is currently used for Apple Pay.
In order to accept payments on an iPhone today, merchants need to use payment terminals that plug in or communicate with the phone via Bluetooth. The upcoming feature will instead turn the iPhone into a payment terminal, letting users such as food trucks and hair stylists accept payments with the tap of a credit card or another iPhone onto the back of their device.
It’s unclear whether the payment acceptance option will be branded as part of Apple Pay, though the team working on the feature has been working within Apple’s payments division since being brought over from Mobeewave, the people said. It’s also not known if Apple intends to partner with an existing payment network for the feature or launch it alone.
Apple may begin rolling out the feature via a software update in the coming months, the people said. The company is expected to release the first beta version of iOS 15.4 in the near future, which is likely to see a final release for consumers as early as the spring.

MacDailyNews Take: Apple in 2020 acquired Mobeewave, a startup whose technology allows iPhones to act as mobile payment terminals, for $100 million.
No dongle required! Watch out, Square! – MacDailyNews, August 1, 2020
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