Apple wants to turn your iPhone into a contactless payment terminal- FROM SISTER NANCY
- TIMES & SIGNS
- Feb 2, 2022
- 2 min read
Apple wants to turn your iPhone into a contactless payment terminal
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Apple is constantly adding new features to the iPhone, and some of those features make other products obsolete. On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that Apple is working on a new service that will let iPhones accept payments without requiring any additional hardware. In effect, the feature will turn every iPhone into a payment terminal. This might well eliminate the need for devices from companies like Square and Toast.
iPhone payment terminal feature coming this year
As noted by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple acquired Canadian company Mobeewave in 2020 for $100 million. Mobeewave created a system that allowed smartphones to accept payments with one tap. Mobeewave’s technology uses near-field communication (NFC) to complete transactions, which every modern iPhone is equipped with.
Gurman points out that this isn’t currently possible on an iPhone. If an iPhone user wants to accept a payment from a credit card or a digital payment service right now, they will need to physically plug the iPhone into a payment terminal or have it connect via Bluetooth.
Depending on how Apple implements the service, other digital payment companies could be in trouble. Gurman explained how Apple could give Square a run for its money:
The move could impact payments providers that rely on Apple’s iPhones to facilitate sales, such as Block Inc.’s Square, which dominates the market. If Apple lets any app use the new technology, then Square can continue accepting payments via Apple devices without needing to worry about providing its own hardware. If Apple requires merchants to use Apple Pay or its own payment processing system, that could compete directly with Square.
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