Soon, any merchant will be able to use their own iPhone as a POS terminal for contactless payments

Problematic to procure for small shop owners and occasional traders, dedicated POS terminals are about to be replaced with iPhone phones set as POS terminals

At least in some parts of the world, small business owners will be able to step up their bank charges and the legal hassle associated with obtaining a POS payment terminal by setting up the iPhone they already have in their pocket to accept payments.

It all starts with the acquisition of Mobeewave announced by Apple in 2020. Far from being an Apple exclusive, the platform has already been tested in Canada, on Samsung phones equipped with NFC mode. Appearing under the name Samsung POS, the functionality allowed compatible Samsung phone owners to accept payments from any contactless card, as well as NFC payments from compatible Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay devices.

It is unclear whether Mobeewave technologies will be renamed and included under the Apple Pay service, or whether the US giant will choose to launch the service with a payment service partner. At least in the first version, it is plausible that the iPhone POS service will be available in the regions where Apple Pay is already launched (including Romania).

The new iPhone functionality will be added with an iOS update, and will be available even on current generation Apple phones.