Apple Makes New Moves to Turn iPhones into Payment Terminals

Small businesses will soon be able to take payments on iPhones without additional hardware, a feature Apple started developing in 2020 with its $100 million acquisition of Mobeewave, Bloomberg reported on Thursday (Jan. 27), citing unnamed sources with insider information,

Canadian startup Mobeewave created the smartphone technology that enables payments with the tap of a credit card. It’s expected that the new feature will leverage the iPhone’s near field communications (NFC) chip used for Apple Pay.

Apple’s move could shake up the market for payments providers like Block’s Square, which dominates the space, depending on how the iPhone maker proceeds with merchants and use of its system by other apps.

Square, for example, could continue accepting payments using Apple devices without the need for its own hardware. If Apple makes it mandatory for retailers to use Apple pay or its own payment processing system, however, it would directly rival Square, Bloomberg reported.

See also: Apple Buys Mobeewave For $100M

Whether the payments feature will be branded as part of Apple Pay is still unknown, the sources told Bloomberg. The development team from Mobeewave is working with Apple’s payments unit. The solution could be launched independently or in partnership with another payment network.

The payments feature will be part of a software update in the next few months, the sources said, and the first beta version of iOS 15.4 is anticipated for release in the spring of this year. The release coincides with the launch of the iPhone SE and iPad Air with 5G as well as a new Mac with an Apple custom processor.

Read more: Apple Fined up to $57M by Dutch Regulators for Skirting Payment System Rules

Mobeewave’s payments tech is already used by Samsung, which backed the startup prior to its acquisition by Apple. Samsung launched tap to pay credit card acceptance on its devices in 2019.