Apple is currently working on a new payments service that will allow iPhone users to accept payments directly on their devices with no additional hardware. Currently, iPhones require add-ons, like the Square Reader, but Apple’s new technology will likely use the NFC chip that is already built into the iPhone, says a Bloomberg report.
Apple began laying the groundwork for an iPhone-based credit card payment option back in 2020 when the Cupertino firm purchased Mobeewave for approximately $100 million. Mobeewave created technology for smartphones to accept payments using NFC.
At the time of the acquisition, Mobeewave’s website said that sending payments with the Mobeewave app was as simple as inputting a transaction amount and tapping an NFC-enabled card on the back of a smartphone. If it uses the Mobeewave technology, Apple’s built-in payment feature is likely to work in a similar way.
The report says that while it’s not yet clear if the payment service will be bundled into Apple Pay, the team working on the feature has been working within Apple’s payments division.
Because current iPhones already have NFC technology, this is not a feature that will be tied to a hardware update, but instead would be a part of an iOS update.
(Via MacRumors)