04-August-2020

Apple has reportedly brought the start up company Mobeewave for $100 million and retained the team of dozens employees too. The company Mobeewave is Montreal based and lets its users accept contactless payments without the use of needing a card reader or any other external hardware. The company already has agreements with National Bank of Canada, Australia’s Commonwealth Bank and Polskie Platnosci.

Mobeewave already allows shoppers to tap their credit card to the back of another smartphone to make payment and it also works when the shopper taps their compatible smartphone to another, by using the Mobeewave app. The transaction would then be completed by using the NFC capability in the phone, or the phone receiving the money when payment is via a credit/debit card. Apple has already installed NFC in every Iphone since 2014 when they introduced Apply Pay. Apple has also just recently launched its own credit card.

Samsung already uses Mobeewave’s technology so that anyone who has downloaded the Samsung POS app can use compatible Samsung Galaxy phones to accept payments as soon as they’ve registered as a merchant.

Whether access to Mobeewave will continue following this Apple acquisition is currently unknown. But it is clear that this is a new service Apple could offer, it does like to gather and build up its services. It is less clear that if it will be aimed at just businesses or whether friends/family could use it to pay money to each other. It could also be used as an extra feature in Apple Pay Cash, Apple may be open to Android users to pay money to Iphone users.

At this moment in time Apple is not confirming anything other than it has brought the company.