Apple has announced that it is coming with Tap to Pay: a way to quickly checkout when you buy something. This mainly concerns small entrepreneurs, because unlike contactless payment at a payment terminal, you now pay from iPhone to iPhone.
Tap to Pay
If you are now in the supermarket and want to pay for something with your iPhone, you use the pin terminal to hold your phone against, after which the balance is debited from your account and you have paid. We’ve been used to that for years, so not everyone fully understood what Apple meant when it came with Tap to Pay. The name implies that you only have to touch something with your iPhone to pay and that already exists.
However, the difference is mainly in the hardware that is needed to make the payment possible. Where Tap to Pay makes the difference, is that no special terminals are needed to make a payment. You just have to hold your iPhone against the entrepreneur’s iPhone to pay. Very useful if, for example, you have your house painted by someone with a sole proprietorship, or if you buy a homemade bag from someone at a market.
Apple Pay
Apple said: “The new capability will enable millions of merchants in the US, from small businesses to large retailers, to use their iPhone. This allows them to seamlessly and securely accept Apple Pay, contactless credit cards, debit cards and other digital wallets with a simple tap on their iPhone.”
“Tap to Pay on iPhone will be made available for app developers to integrate into their iOS apps as a payment option. Stripe will be the first payment platform this spring to offer Tap to Pay on iPhone to their enterprise customers, including the Shopify Point of Sale- app. Additional payment platforms and apps will follow later this year.”
Good for small businesses
Good news that this innovation is coming, but at the same time it’s a shame that it’s only available in the United States now. Hopefully it will come to the Netherlands soon, because especially in these times small companies can make good use of the turnover: not having to invest in a terminal makes a difference again and makes it more accessible for creative people, for example, to take the step to sell their goods.
Tap to Pay can be used on an iPhone XS or later, as well as via an Apple Watch. It mainly uses Apple Pay, but it also wants to accept other payment platforms. It’s a hugely innovative solution from Apple. For example, there is an app such as Square, but this app does require a terminal or small device to make payments. Now you won’t have to deal with terminals that don’t go online or are very slow: it’s a matter of one touch and the payment is done, because it works via NFC and the protection that is also used for Apple Pay.
In the meantime, the crypto movement has hope, because this could mean that you will soon be able to pay more easily with your crypto wallet. However, Apple itself does not make any statements about this.