Apple Pay Support Could Expand to Small Businesses

Apple Pay has been rather popular since it launched last month, and payment processing service Square will be able to bring Apple’s new digital payment platform to smaller businesses.

While Apple Pay is becoming the most popular digital payment service, it’s only accepted at larger retail locations and a handful of restaurant chains, but Square is looking to change that.

If you’re not familiar with Square, it’s a payment processing service that allows small businesses to easily accept credit or debits cards as a payment method, but in the near future, it will allow small businesses to begin accepting Apple Pay.

According to CNN, Square founder Jack Dorsey says that the service will soon support Apple Pay at some point next year. It’s not exactly clear how Square will implement Apple Pay technology, but most likely the Square card reader itself will undergo some hardware changes to include an NFC reader that will be able to accept Apple Pay payments, as well as other forms of digital payments through NFC.

The current Square card reader can swipe credit or debit cards, but isn’t able to accept any form of wireless payment yet, which is why Apple Pay support has yet to arrive.

This is certainly good news for consumers and small businesses alike, as it will allow small businesses to accept more payment methods, and consumers will be able to use the new digital payment service from Apple at more than just larger retail chains, further expanding the support for Apple Pay.

The addition of more and more stores supporting Apple Pay is a big deal, but there are still some stores who aren’t getting on board with Apple’s new payment platform, including one of the biggest stores in the world: Walmart. High credit card transaction fees is the main reason why Walmart isn’t supporting Apple Pay.

Credit card transaction fees are fees that stores are required to pay to banks when a credit card is used to buy goods at the cash register. Walmart believes these fees are too high, which is a big reason why the national retail chain is opting for CurrentC, which has payment options that have lower fees than credit card transactions.

CurrentC is a new digital payment method that will launch early next year, and it’s from a group called Merchant Customer Exchange, which consists of a handful of big retail chains, including CVS, Rite Aid, Best Buy, Lowe’s, Sears, and Target.

MCX praises its upcoming payment platform, as it links directly to users’ debit accounts, which bypasses card companies and their transaction fees. However, it’s been stated that it’s not the best solution for the consumer. The system uses QR codes that requires the user to unlock their phone, open up an app, and display a QR code that gets scanned by the pay terminal reader, whereas Apple Pay simply requires users to take out their iPhones and point it close to the NFC terminal with their finger on the Touch ID sensor.

Apple Pay was launched last month and has become the fastest-growing digital payment platform on the market so far.

Apple Pay allows you to store your credit card information on your iPhone and use it to buy stuff at any store that supports Apple Pay. The iPhone 6 has an NFC chip that allows you to tap the pay terminal at a store to instantly buy goods without swiping your credit card. Furthermore, doing this doesn’t give the store your credit card information, so you’re less susceptible to store hacks that steal credit card information, similar to the recent Home Depot and Target hacks.

Apple Pay also works with mobile shopping apps, allowing you to pay with a single touch of the Touch ID fingerprint sensor in shopping apps that support the feature.