Small businesses will soon be able to collect payments using iPhones instead of a hardware. Since the tech giant acquired contactless payment firm Mobeewave in 2020, the feature has been anticipated.

According to a fresh rumor from another news outlet, Apple is working on a new feature that will allow iPhone users to accept credit card payments via contactless technology without any additional hardware. According to the source, Apple’s method will most likely use NFC technology, similar to Apple Pay.

Small businesses who want to accept payments with an iPhone must currently rely on external, third-party hardware. This hardware is frequently provided by Square, a financial services business that sells a variety of payment terminals for iPhone and iPad devices.

By implementing tap-to-pay terminal technology right into the iPhone’s built-in NFC chip, the company would be able to leapfrog Square’s hardware. Small companies will be able to take tap-to-pay payments without the need for additional technology.

The feature would also appear to work with Apple Pay, allowing users to make payments by tapping their iPhone against the back of another iPhone.

The upcoming feature will instead turn the iPhone into a payment terminal, letting users such as food trucks and hair stylists accept payments with the tap of 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, though the team working on the feature has been working within Apple’s payments division since being brought over from Mobeewave, the people said. It’s also not known if Apple intends to partner with an existing payment network for the feature or launch it alone.

According to today’s report, Apple may implement this feature as a software feature “in the coming months,” possibly as soon as iOS 15.4. Apple just released iOS 15.3 to the general public, so beta testing for iOS 15.4 is scheduled to start soon.

According to another report, Apple’s internal efforts to implement this feature follow the company’s acquisition of Mobeewave for roughly $100 million in 2020. Mobeewave advertised itself as a way to collect credit card payments “with a tap on your phone” before being acquired by the firm.

Mobeewave previously collaborated with Samsung on NFC capabilities, trialing a system named Samsung POS in the startup’s native country of Canada before offering it globally in 2019. Samsung POS allows contactless cards and NFC payment services like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay to be used to make payments directly on Samsung phones.

Today, Apple released iOS 15.3, which was more of a bug fix than a feature-driven point release. According to Bloomberg, Apple is scheduled to release the first iOS 15.4 beta soon, which could be when we see the contactless payment capability for the first time.

It’s unclear whether Mobeewave’s technology will be branded as part of Apple Pay, or whether Apple would begin with an existing partner or utilize its own payment network. Since the acquisition, Mobeewave’s employees have apparently been working in Apple’s payment division.