This week a rather interesting report surfaced on Bloomberg (paywall), noting that an upcoming update to iPhones could see the mobile devices facilitate payments without the need for any external hardware.

As The Verge points out, this feature has been in the offing for a little while now, following Apple’s acquisition of contactless payment startup Mobeewave in 2020.

No precise date for an update has been mentioned yet, but the aforementioned Bloomberg report says to expect it in the coming months, with unnamed sources cited on the matter.

Full details are thin on the ground right now, as it is unclear what guise this payment system will take. Mobeewave had previously worked with Samsung on a similar system for the Samsung Pay platform before the Canadian-based startup was acquired by Apple, so it is unclear if this upcoming featuring will be linked to Apple Pay in order to work.

The Samsung POS system while proprietary, was able to facilitate payments via other platforms like Apple Pay and Google Pay, so adding support for a variety of mobile payment options for the upcoming solution on iPhones is certainly in the realm of possibility.

If it does indeed do that, this could prove a significant tool for those who run a micro or small business, as the ability to accept mobile payments without the need for a physical point of sale, card terminal or NFC hardware, would eliminate many hurdles.

Given that much of the African continent uses phones to handle transacting these days, it could open up opportunities in markets that have traditionally proved hard for Apple to crack, provided it can do something about pricing.

With no release date mentioned for the feature just yet, we may have to wait until Apple’s WWDC 2022 conference rolls around in June or when the next iteration of iOS is released.