A new feature is coming to the iPhone with the iOS 18.1 operating software, currently available for developers only. For the first time, developers will be able to offer payments without going through Apple Pay.
The new feature will come later this year and will mean developers can access the Secure Element, “an industry-standard, certified chip designed to store sensitive information securely on device,” as Apple describes it in its statement.
Apple goes on, “Using the new NFC and SE (Secure Element) APIs, developers will be able to offer in-app contactless transactions for in-store payments, car keys, closed-loop transit, corporate badges, student IDs, home keys, hotel keys, merchant loyalty and rewards cards, and event tickets, with government IDs to be supported in the future.”
This is a big change: when Apple Pay first launched, many were sceptical about how secure it would be, and over time it came to be seen as a reliably safe way to pay money.
So, unsurprisingly, Apple has been keen to stress that this new feature has been built with security in mind, too. “As users’ security and privacy is of the utmost importance to Apple, this new solution was designed to provide developers with a secure way to offer NFC contactless transactions from within their iOS apps,” Apple says.
Users will be able to set the app as their default contactless app or open the app and pay from there, for instance.
Apple says that developers will only be authorized to do this if they “meet certain industry and regulatory requirements, and commit to Apple’s ongoing security and privacy standards.”
The developers will also have to enter into a commercial agreement with Apple, which means paying what are called associated fees.
The application programming interfaces required for the developers to introduce the capability will arrive in a future developer beta of iOS 18.1.