Square to begin beta testing support for Apple’s Tap to Pay

Square announced on Thursday that it will begin to support Apple’s Tap to Pay technology later this year with a beta test arriving this summer as part of the company’s Early Access Program.

Right now, a company using Square to process sales needs to use Square’s familiar dongle to receive payments. With support for Apple’s Tap to Pay, it should be able to process a big chunk of payments with nothing but an iPhone and the Square app. The new program will allow iPhone users to pay with their phones within Square’s point of sale (POS) app.

Apple first announced Tap to Pay in February 2022 and first supported Square’s competitor Stripe. The partnership with Stripe also supports payments made in the Shopify POS app. The Tap to Pay feature is currently only available on iPhone models XS and later. Between that and requiring people have cards or phones that support tapping to pay, the Square dongle might not be going away anytime soon. Its appeal, for a lot of vendors, is how it allows them to take in more forms of payment easily. The dongle, for a lot of Square users, might still be the best choice.

Square said in its press release that spots for its Early Access Program are limited and did not specify when the program would start. But you can sign up for the program right now on Square’s website.