According to a report published by Bloomberg, Apple is in the process of adding a new feature to iPhones, allowing users to turn their iPhones into a payment terminal without having to rely on extra payment hardware(via Reuters).
Once the feature becomes available for the general public, merchants will be able to accept payments directly into their iPhones with the tap of a credit card or another iPhone onto the back of their device.
The Cupertino tech giant has been working on the feature since 2020. It purchased Canadian company Mobeewave for $100 million to make iPhones work as a payment hub, and after almost two years, Apple, along with Mobeewave, seems to have made significant headway so much so that the company appears to be ready to roll out the feature in a coming few months.
The new payment terminal feature put the Near Field Communication chip of the iPhone to use for transactions to happen seamlessly. It’ll be interesting to see if Apple brands this feature as an extension to Apple Pay.
The new feature won’t work on every iPhone as not all of them are equipped with the NFC chip. You’ll need iPhone 7 or newer to use the feature as they all ship with an NFC chip inside them.
The new feature is likely to arrive via a software update in the coming months, but we’re uninformed about when the new feature will be available for the users.
Meanwhile, Apple is gearing up for the launch of the new iPhone SE, 27-inch iMac, and high-end Mac mini with M1 Pro and M1 Max chips. Apple will reportedly announce these new devices at its virtual event, which will happen in March or April.