What if it was possible to allow small business owners to accept contactless credit card payments using just the smartphone in their pocket without extra hardware like the Square Reader?
Montreal-based fintech startup Mobeewave developed its mobile point of sale (mPOS) solution to answer this very question. It worked with Samsung on a pilot program to test the technology in Canada. The test went very well. Now that technology may soon allow iPhone owners to accept NFC contactless credit card payments right on the device itself.
Samsung is actually an investor in Mobeewave
Samsung and Mobeewave launched the pilot testing program for Samsung POS in Canada back in 2019. Over 10,000 merchants and small businesses downloaded the app on their Galaxy smartphones. It allowed them to accept card payments without needing any extra hardware. Samsung believed in the company to the extent that its venture capital division is actually an investor in Moveewave.
Powered by Mobeewave, Samsung POS supported debit and credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay. This technology enabled Samsung phones to double as point of sale terminals for small business owners. Anyone who wanted to accept contactless payments just needed to download the app and register as a merchant.
It was announced in 2020 that Apple had acquired Mobeewave for $100 million. This was the first indication that perhaps Apple might bring this technology to its smartphones. It has included NFC chips in its smartphones since the iPhone 6 so hardware compatibility wasn't going to be an issue.
Bloomberg is now reporting that Apple will soon enable small businesses to accept payments on iPhones without any extra hardware. The newspaper mentions that this feature could be enabled for supported iPhones through a software update “in the coming months.”
Chances are that the upcoming iOS 15.4 beta will include this functionality. Apple has only just released iOS 15.3. So it may take a few months before this feature becomes available.
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