Apple is expanding access to contactless transactions for the iPhone to third-party developers, giving way to tap-to-pay apps other than Apple Pay. The tech giant gave NFC access to developers in the European Union last month after years of negotiations with the European Commission, but it posted a new notice yesterday announcing that is it expanding that access to several other countries.
Specifically, the company is rolling out two new APIs, one for NFC and another for Secure Element, which will be available in the upcoming developer seed for iOS 18.1. Secure Element is a dedicated chip for storing sensitive information.
With this change, developers will be apple to offer in-app contactless transactions for tap payments, car keys, home and hotel keys, rewards cards, event tickets, government IDs, student IDs, and more. Once these apps are available, users can either make the transactions by opening the app directly or set it as the default contactless app, which lets you activate it via a double click of the side button just like with Apple Pay.
The NFC and SE APIs will be available to developers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. As for other countries, access to the APIs will roll out in the future.
(Source: Apple)
