Hello Apple Developer Technical Support Team,
I’m working on an iOS banking/security SDK and we’re trying to match an Android feature that reads payment cards via NFC (EMV). On Android, this is implemented using an NFC scanning screen (e.g., “NfcScanActivity”) that can read EMV data from contactless credit/debit cards.
Could you please clarify the current iOS capabilities and App Store policy around this?
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On iOS, is it currently possible for a third-party App Store app to read contactless credit/debit cards using Core NFC (i.e., accessing EMV application data/AIDs from payment cards)?
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If this is possible, what are the supported APIs/frameworks and any entitlement requirements (if applicable)?
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If this is not possible for App Store apps, could you recommend the closest acceptable alternatives for achieving a similar user outcome? For example:
- Using Apple Pay / PassKit flows for payment-related experiences
- Card scanning alternatives (camera-based OCR) for capturing card details (if allowed)
- Using an external certified card reader accessory (MFi) and required approach/entitlements
- Any other Apple-recommended approach for “card verification / identification” without reading EMV NFC data
Our goal is not to bypass security restrictions, but to provide a compliant solution on iOS comparable to Android’s NFC-based card reading, or to adopt an Apple-approved alternative if direct EMV reading is not supported.
If helpful, I can share a brief technical summary of the Android behavior and the exact data we need to obtain (e.g., whether it’s card presence verification vs. reading specific EMV tags).
Thank you for your guidance.
Best regards, Anis