Apple announced on Tuesday a new payment system in stores that replaces the traditional sales terminals for credit cards known as dataphones for iPhones so that it is enough to bring the phone of the seller and the buyer closer to close the transaction.
With this method, the cashier will extend his iPhone to the customer in the same way that he currently does with the dataphone, and the customer will bring his mobile with Apple Pay or his contactless credit or debit card to proceed with the payment, the company reported in a statement.
The system, dubbed “Tap to Pay” by Apple, will be available starting next spring for businesses that are customers of the Stripe payment processing platform (including those using the popular Shopify app), and will be rolled out to other apps and platforms later this year.
For now, the service will be available only in the United States and will be compatible with American Express, Visa, Mastercard, and Discover cards, among others.
“Tap to Pay” uses near-field communication technology, known as NFC.
The Cupertino-based firm assured that the data transferred with “Tap to Pay” will be protected with the same privacy technology used by Apple Pay, that all transactions will be encrypted and that not even Apple itself will be able to know what is being transferred. is buying or who is buying it.