Accepting card payments on iPhone without extra hardware may soon be possible

Apple is working on a service that will enable iPhones to accept payments, thus turning them into payment terminals (via Bloomberg). The new feature would most likely utilize the iPhone's NFC chip and enable small business owners to accept payments directly with their iPhones.

According to Bloomberg’s sources, Apple has been working on this feature since around 2020, when it bought a Canadian startup company called Mobeewave. Mobeewave was developing technology that would allow smartphones to take payments with the tap of a credit card.

There is currently no official information on whether the new payment acceptance feature will be part of Apple Pay, or whether Apple plans to launch the service independently or in collaboration with an existing payment network.

According to the sources, the feature may be rolled out in the coming months via a software update. It is expected that Apple will soon release the first beta version of iOS 15.4, which may have this payment acceptance feature, and it is very likely that Apple will release the final version for its customers in the spring of 2022. At the moment, there is no official statement from Apple on the matter.

Currently, if a small business owner wants to accept payments using their iPhone, they will need an additional payment terminal to do so. Payment terminals like Block Inc.’s Square, for example, plug into the iPhone or connected to the phone via Bluetooth. When a customer wants to pay, they simply need to use their payment card, and the device will send the information to the iPhone.

It should be noted that the iPhone won't be the first smartphone to use Mobeewave's payment acceptance technology. In 2019, Samsung, which sponsored the firm before it was sold to Apple, added the technology to its smartphones. Back then, both companies launched the feature in a pilot program only available in Canada.