Apple has bought the startup Mobeewave, a company that has a technology capable of transforming iPhones into mobile payment terminals, a sector in which mobile manufacturers are moving a lot.
The goal of Mobeewave is to allow shoppers to tap their credit card or smartphone on another phone to process a payment. You only need an app, no need to buy any additional device, since it only uses NFC, something that modern phones already have.
Although no numbers have been officially specified, it appears that the value of the purchase is around $ 100 million. Mobeewave employees will stay at Apple, continuing to work from Montreal.
It’s good to remember that Apple added Apple Pay to the iPhone in 2014, allowing users to pay for physical goods with one tap at retail stores. Last year, it launched its own credit card, the Apple Card, and now it will be able to allow any user with an iPhone to accept payments without additional hardware.
It will thus compete with Square, a leading provider of payment hardware and software for smartphones and tablets. Although, as can be seen on the Mobeewave website, the system seems even simpler: we write the amount to pay and let a customer touch their credit card on the seller’s phone to process the payment on the device.
Samsung already partnered with Mobeewave last year to allow its phones to use the technology, so there is no telling what will happen now that the owner of Mobeewave is precisely its competition.
