Apple announces new Tap to Pay feature that turns iPhones into contactless payment terminals

This feature, coming later this year, will allow businesses to use their iPhones to “seamlessly and securely” accept Apple Pay payments with a simple tap.

The feature will also work for contactless credit cards and debit cards, as well as other digital wallets.

The most interesting part of this new feature from Apple is that the company is actually teaming up with third parties and making the platform available to app developers and other payment platforms. 

Apple says that Stripe will be the first payment platform to offer Tap to Pay on iPhone this spring, including via an update to the Shopify Point of Sale application.

What this means is that this won’t be a native iOS feature, but rather Apple is opening the NFC chip up in the iPhone to third-party payment platforms to create applications that enable Tap to Pay technology.

Apple explains: Tap to Pay on iPhone will be available for payment platforms and app developers to integrate into their iOS apps and offer as a payment option to their business customers. 

Stripe will be the first payment platform to offer Tap to Pay on iPhone to their business customers, including the Shopify Point of Sale app this spring. Additional payment platforms and apps will follow later this year.