Apple says your iPhone will soon serve as a point-of-sale (PoS) terminal

It will also give Apple a competitive edge in the growing world of contactless payments, in which the iPhone, as well as Apple Pay, plays a major role by effectively turning the iPhone into a point-of-sale terminal.

Since the launch of Apple Pay in 2014, the iPhone has been used as a contactless way to pay for goods and services. But merchants need to have their own point-of-sale hardware to accept contactless payments. Shares of payments platform company Block, formerly known as Square Inc., which accepts payments with its famous iPhone dongle, fell more than 1% on Tuesday following Apple’s announcement.

Those devices ranged in price from $50 for a contactless payment device that sat next to a cash register, to devices that cost hundreds of dollars and that paid an employee or shop owner anywhere in the store or restaurant. allowed to accept. Inexpensive devices often have to be kept charged and connected to existing point-of-sale systems, which can be frustrating if they fail.

Because of cost, often only large retailers will have mobile tap-to-pay devices. For example, Apple’s own retail employees use a device bolted to an iPhone to accept contactless payments in their stores.

Mimi Striplin, owner of jewelry store The Tiny Tassel, said, “Often our contactless readers have issues or are finicky, so it would be great to offer this new way to pay as a backup and do it. Wouldn’t have to buy new hardware for that.” in Charleston, South Carolina.

Apple said that now the iPhone will be able to function as a payment terminal without any additional hardware. The tap-to-pay feature will use the iPhone’s existing NFC chip that was being used to route payments to the payment terminal. It will be available to developers via an iOS software update this spring. It will be up to developers and paid-service companies to add capability to their point-of-sale software.

Apple said that Stripe will be the first point-of-sale company to use the iPhone as a tap-to-pay payment terminal through its Shopify app.

Contactless, or tap-to-pay, payment systems have long been popular outside the US as the default method of payment for goods and services. But tap-to-pay has grown in popularity in the US in recent years, especially during the pandemic when customers and merchants wanted to avoid as much physical contact with cash and cards as possible.

Google and Samsung have unveiled Android devices that will allow merchants to use those devices as contactless payment terminals, but those announcements are largely aimed outside the US, where contactless payment habits already exist. are well established. The new iPhone feature is aimed at the US, a more lucrative market where contactless payments are still on the rise.

The feature will only be available on iPhones XS or later, Apple said, and will not be available on iPads. Just like with Apple Pay, the company said it will keep transaction data private and not know what merchants and customers are buying.

This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed. Only the title has been changed.