Apple plans a new feature that will turn iPhone into a payment device

It's unclear whether the payment acceptance option will be branded as part of Apple Pay

Apple Inc. is planning a new service that will let small businesses accept payments directly on their iPhones without any extra hardware, according to people with knowledge of the matter. 

The company has been working on the new feature since around 2020, when it paid about $100 million for a Canadian startup called Mobeewave that developed technology for smartphones to accept payments with the tap of a credit card. The system will likely use the iPhone’s near field communications, or NFC, chip that is currently used for Apple Pay. 

In order to accept payments on an iPhone today, merchants need