Apple Inc. to allow iPhone users accept credit cards without extra hardware

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) is planning a new service that will allow small businesses to allow payments directly on their iPhones without any required hardware

For payments to get accepted on an iPhone, retailers currently use payment terminals to receive money on their iOS devices that are connected via Bluetooth, such as Block Inc’s Square payment systems.

Reports reveal that the upcoming service will instead turn the iPhone into a payment terminal which will allow merchants to accept payments with the tap of a credit card or another iPhone onto the back of their device.

The system will likely use iPhone’s near field communications, or NFC, chip that is currently used for Apple Pay and the feature may roll out through a software update in the coming months.

Apple Inc. has been working on the new feature since 2020. It paid about $100 million to Mobeewave, a Canadian startup, that developed a technology for smartphones to accept payments with the tap of a credit card.

According to the report, it is unclear whether the payment acceptance option will be branded as part of Apple Pay or if the company plans to partner with an existing payment network for the feature or launch it
alone.