Oliver Haslam on January 28, 2022, 8:04 pm

iPhones Could Accept Credit Card Payments Via NFC Without Additional Hardware [Report]

Apple is working on a feature that would allow iPhones to accept card payments according to a new report.

Writing for Bloomberg, Mark Gurman says that Apple is working on the feature and has been doing so for the last couple of years — ever since it bought a Canadian company that was already allowing iPhones to handle payments in a similar way.

The company has been working on the new feature since around 2020, when it paid about $100 million for a Canadian startup called Mobeewave that developed technology for smartphones to accept payments with the tap of a credit card. The system will likely use the iPhone’s near field communications, or NFC, chip that is currently used for Apple Pay.

If iPhones do support accepting payments in the future you have to imagine there are no technical reasons why it couldn’t also allow Apple Watches to do the same.

They have the same NFC technology as iPhones, although we have to imagine that fewer people will be using their Apple Watches to take payments.

The most obvious benefit here would be for point-of-sale devices, a roll in which iPads and Square accessories currently work well. Although iPads don’t have the same NFC capabilities as iPhones — although they do have a chip inside — it’s possible iPad support would be added in future.