Apple is reportedly developing a new feature that will allow iPhone users to accept credit card payments via contactless technology without any additional hardware.
According to a report from Bloomberg as seen on Friday (28/1/2022), it is explained that this Apple system is likely to use NFC technology similar to Apple Pay.
Currently, small businesses who wish to receive payments using an iPhone are required to use external third-party hardware. Often this hardware comes from financial services company Square which sells several different payment terminals for iPhone and iPad devices.
Apple will be able to leapfrog Square's hardware by integrating tap-to-pay terminal technology directly into the iPhone using its built-in NFC chip. This means small businesses will be able to accept tap-to-pay payments without any external hardware.
This feature also appears to work with Apple Pay, allowing users to tap their iPhone against the back of another iPhone to make payments.
The upcoming feature will instead turn the iPhone into a payment terminal, allowing users from street food to salons to accept payments by tapping 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, although the team working on the feature has worked within Apple's payments division since being brought in from Mobeewave.
It's also unknown if Apple will partner with an existing payment network for the feature or roll it out on its own.
Launching from 9to5mac according to reports this feature is likely to be rolled out via a software feature in the coming months which may be rolled out soon after the release of iOS 15.4.
Apple also today released its new operating system, namely iSO 15.3 publicly, so beta testing on iOS 15.4 is expected to start sooner. This is Apple's internal effort to roll out a payment feature with the iPhone after it acquired Mobeewave in 2020 for around USD 100 million.