Apple announces new Tap to Pay feature for iPhone

Apple will be introducing a new Tap to Pay feature on iPhone which will allow merchants to use their iPhones as a point of sales terminal.

According to GSM Arena, the new service will come to the US first later this year with an iOS software beta and will support Apple Pay, contactless credit and debit cards and other digital wallets without needing any additional hardware.

The service will work with contactless credit and debit cards from leading payment networks including Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover.

Tap to Pay will be available for both payment platforms and developers to integrate into their apps. Apple revealed that Stripe will be the first platform to support the new feature come this Spring.

Apple also revealed Tap to Pay compatibility details for merchants. They will need an iPhone XS or later device and will have to download the supporting iOS app in order to set up. After the setup process, store owners can accept NFC payments from customers via a simple tap.

Tap to Pay uses the same payment data protection as Apple Pay with Secure Element encryption which generates unique transaction IDs each time one makes a purchase.

As per The Verge, Apple does not get data on what a user is buying or who is paying at the terminal. Tap to Pay will be widely available in most retailers that currently accept Apple Pay.

• Americas