The widespread rollout of Tap to Pay on iPhonethe novelty announced in February that promises to transform an iPhone in a tool with which anyone can receive contactless paymentslike a Pos. Apple had promised that it would arrive in all its stores in the United States within the end of the year, but according to the well-known Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman, times have been shortened, and by a lot.
“Tap to Pay is on rollout in Apple Stores starting today”, he wrote on Twitter sharing the video that we also proposed to you on one of the very first payment attempts from iPhone to iPhone which was successful a few days ago in the Apple Park Visitor Center, in Cupertino. The test, in short, after about ten days would have already given such positive results as to induce Apple to deliver the news (much) earlier than expected.
The next step now is to make Tap to Pay a feature accessible to everyone, which will likely happen first in the US and then in the rest of the world. The times of the last steps, however, were and remain not very definable, even if the acceleration on the rollout in the American Apple Stores bodes well for a widespread rollout in a relatively short time. At that point merchants, small businesses, and retailers will be able to accept payments from regular contactless credit and debit cards using an iPhone XS or later.
Currently, an external reader, such as SumUp’s wireless reader, is required to accept contactless payments via an iPhone. According to Apple’s words, customers’ payment data are protected by the same technology protected by Apple Pay – which arrived in Italy in 2017 – and all transactions are encrypted and processed using the Secure Element. Apple warrants that will never know what is being bought or who is buying it.
