Apple announces major expansion of Tap to Pay on iPhone

Tap to Pay on iPhone is the ultimate in convenience for small businesses looking to accept contactless payment from both mobile wallets and physical cards, and from today it’s available in nine more countries.

It allows retailers to accept contactless payment using only their iPhone, with no separate mobile terminal or card reader required …

Tap to Pay on iPhone

First announced in 2022 with a gradual rollout in the US, Tap to Pay on iPhone is effectively a 4th generation of card payment tech for small businesses:

1. Wired card payment terminals, with rental fees
2. Wireless versions, which still had to be rented
3. Standalone devices using a Bluetooth connection to an iPhone, with a one-off cost
4. Tap to Pay on iPhone

With the latter, there’s no need for any additional hardware of any kind. Instead, the consumer taps their card, iPhone, or Apple Watch against the iPhone owned by the business – though it should be noted that it’s of course limited to contactless payments, which have varying transaction limits which may not be suitable for all companies.

Since then, Apple has been gradually rolling out the service to a series of other countries.

Today rolled out to nine more countries

Today’s expansion is one of the biggest since launch, landing in nine new countries on the same day:

• Bulgaria: Adyen, myPOS, Revolut, and Viva; SumUp coming soon

• Finland: Adyen, Mollie, Nets, Revolut, Stripe, SumUp and Viva; Surfboard Payments coming soon

• Hungary: Adyen, Global Payments, myPOS, Revolut, SumUp, Viva, and Worldline

• Poland: Adyen, eService with PKO Bank, Mollie, Stripe, SumUp, Viva, and Worldline; Planet Pay, Revolut, and PeP (part of Nexi) coming soon

• Portugal: Adyen, Mollie, myPOS, Revolut, Stripe, SumUp, and Viva

• Slovakia: Adyen, Global Payments Slovenská Sporitel’ňa, Revolut, and Worldline; SumUp coming soon

• Slovenia: Adyen, Revolut, and Worldline; SumUp and hobex coming soon

• Switzerland: Adyen, Mollie, myPOS, Nexi, Stripe, SumUp, and Worldline; hobex coming soon

For those in the US, Intuit last week announced a QuickBooks integration that allows payments to be seamlessly feed contactless payments to the accounting app.

Photo: Apple