Cupertino-based giant Apple is planning a new service that can potentially revolutionalise online payments. The company is reportedly planning a new service that will let small businesses accept payments directly on their iPhones, a report in Bloomberg cites people familiar with the development as saying. According to the report, Apple has been working on the feature since around 2020 when it acquired a Canadian startup called Mobeewave that developed technology that allows smartphones to accept payments with the tap of a credit card.
According to the Bloomberg report, the new system will allow users to tap their credit cards directly on iPhones in order to make payments. This will likely use the iPhone’s Near Field Communication (NFC) technology or the chip that currently powers Apple Pay. Currently, merchants need to use payment terminals that plug in or communicate with the phone via Bluetooth, like Block Inc’s Square. The rumored feature, however, will turn the iPhone into that payment terminal, allowing owners of businesses like food trucks and salons to accept payments by just tapping credit cards with their iPhone.
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The Bloomberg report also cites data from the Allied Market Research to highlight that the mobile payment market is anticipated to grow multi-fold by 2023.
Now it is unclear if or when Apple will give us a glimpse into the future. The report hints that the team working on the feature has been working within Apple’s payments division since being move from Mobeewave. It is not known if Apple will include the new system with Apple Pay or partner with an existing payment network for the feature to launch.
Apple today started rolling out the latest version of iOS, iOS 15.3 that brings a host of fixes and performance improvements for iPhone users. Alongside iOS 15.3, Apple has also launched iPadOS 15.3 and WatchOS 8.4 for iPad and Apple Watch users. The update does not bring many new features and is more focused on bug fixes and under-the-hood improvements. One of the main changes that the new iOS update brings is a fix for a Safari vulnerability that may have been leaking users’ browsing history and Google ID data to the websites users visited.
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