Square Will Launch An Apple Pay-Ready NFC And Card Chip Reader This Fall
Context & Ripple Effects
In June 2015 Square committed to a reader that accepts both NFC taps and chip-card dips, timed for the fall when Apple Pay was still locked to a handful of large retailers. The follow-through came fast: shipping began that November with Samsung Pay support for Chase cards alongside, and by February 2016 the reader was on shelves in US Apple stores for $49 — Apple itself distributing the hardware that makes its wallet usable at Square's small-merchant base.
First-order effects
- Millions of Square sellers get their first path to accepting Apple Pay and chip cards without upgrading to a full register, removing the acceptance gap between tiny merchants and big-box chains.
Second-order effects
- Wallet makers are forced into cross-compatibility — the same $49 dongle handling Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, and chip cards turns wallets into interchangeable software features rather than lock-in plays.
Third-order effects
- The reader becomes a beachhead for a hardware-to-platform ladder: the all-in-one Square Terminal in 2018, the Reader SDK letting vendors embed payments in their own apps, and ultimately Tap to Pay on iPhone in 2022, where the phone itself replaces the dongle entirely.
The trend: Payment acceptance is migrating from proprietary single-purpose swipe hardware toward multi-wallet NFC devices and, eventually, software-only tap-to-pay on the merchant's own phone.