Dive Brief:
- iPhone users will have the ability to transfer money by holding their phones together when the smartphone’s new operating system, iOS 18, becomes available in the fall, tech giant Apple said in a Monday news release.
- Users will transfer money through Apple Pay, a digital wallet that stores payment methods such as credit or debit cards and works via an iPhone app.
- The iPhone has for years let users transfer data between phones through a simple touch, and iPhone users can pay through a touch with Apple Pay. The upcoming operating system will be the first to let two people transfer money through the touch of a phone.
Dive Insight:
The ability to transfer data from one phone to another with a touch has existed for more than a decade. The Android Beam had that feature in 2011, and credit cards and smartphones with digital wallets have been able to transfer money to a merchant with a tap for about two years.
But Apple is now expanding on that technology by letting two people transfer money between their smartphones.
Tap to Cash, as the feature is called, lets an iPhone user move money from Apple Pay to another iPhone user’s Apple wallet in an instant.
Apple unveiled Tap to Cash in the same announcement that said Siri, the iPhone’s digital assistant, will use ChatGPT to generate more detailed answers to user questions and comments.
Once iOS 18 is available, Apple Pay will also let iPhone users redeem rewards and access installments from eligible credit and debit cards, the company said in its statement.
It remains to be seen if the new feature will encroach on the business of other peer-to-peer payment services like PayPal and Venmo.
