eBay to add support for Apple Pay, beginning rollout this fall in US, and partners with Square Capital on seller financing
Context & Ripple Effects
Square has been an Apple Pay distribution point since it started shipping its chip card reader with Apple Pay support in 2015, and eBay's announcement extends that partnership logic from countertop hardware into marketplace checkout — while adding a second thread, Square Capital lending to eBay sellers. The news lands on strong footing: eBay reported Q2 revenue of $3.13 billion, up 15% year over year, on gross merchandise volume of $22.4 billion, and guided Q3 above Wall Street estimates.
The pairing matters because it ties two of Square's businesses to a top-tier marketplace at once: payments acceptance and seller credit. Four years later the same company would plan and then ship Tap to Pay on iPhone support in its Point of Sale app, confirming the merchant-side distributor role this 2018 deal reinforced.
First-order effects
- US eBay buyers get Apple Pay as a checkout option beginning this fall, and eBay sellers gain access to Square Capital financing — both changes take effect against a quarter where eBay beat revenue estimates and forecast Q3 GMV growth of 10% to 12%.
Second-order effects
- Square Capital gains a customer-acquisition channel well beyond Square's own point-of-sale base, extending the arrangement that made Square a merchant-side distributor for Apple payment technology — a role it deepened with its Tap to Pay on iPhone launch in 2022.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, wallet acceptance stops being a per-merchant adoption decision and becomes embedded infrastructure distributed through partners like Square, while seller financing matures into a standard marketplace service bundled alongside payments.
The trend: Apple's wallet is shifting from an opt-in checkout button toward embedded commerce infrastructure, distributed through partners such as Square across both online marketplaces and in-person payments.