> Apple will work closely with leading payment platforms and app developers across the payments and commerce industry to offer Tap to Pay on iPhone to millions of merchants in the US. Is it just me feeling that Apple is again playing gatekeeper to iPhone APIs and hindering true competition by "working with leading platforms" aka. the big players, like Stripe or PayPal, essentially leaving startups and smaller players…
They do that when they're concerned about bad actors or want to prove out the API first with a controlled set of people who are willing to experience breakage
Not only must you be reviewed by the App Store, but your app will require security entitlements to act as a payment processor. And you'll have to be a registered Apple developer in good standing.
If a malicious actor went through all this trouble to grab some transactions, they'd be shutdown within hours of the scam and Apple would refund the money.
Also, who's going to trust or want to use "Bob's rando payment processor"? No merchant is going to do that.