It has just gotten easier for small businesses in the United States to accept contactless payments after two of the country's most popular money platforms confirmed support for Apple's Tap to Pay feature. The feature allows businesses to accept contactless payments via either Apple Pay or contactless cards using nothing more than an iPhone. So long as it's an iPhone XS or newer, no additional hardware is required — no dongles or Bluetooth card readers are needed.
Accepting contactless payments using an iPhone is something that businesses have been doing for years, and the use of contactless payment technology has come on in leaps and bounds thanks in part to the COVID-19 pandemic and a requirement for easy payment methods that do not require cash. Apple announced the Tap to Pay technology in 2022 but it requires that payment processors add support for it before can be used. That's what PayPal and Venmo have now done.
