Apple has purchased Montreal-based payments technology startup, Mobeewave, which uses NFC communications to let users make payments by tapping a compatible credit card on a smartphone.

Although various point-of-sale terminals support a tap-to-pay credit card transaction, no company has mastered producing it for the Apple iPhone.

Apple reportedly paid approximately $100 million for Mobeewave. The company's workforce is being retained and will continue to work out of its Canadian headquarters, according to a Appleinsider report.

Mobeewave's solution is an integrated system and doesn't require extra hardware such as NCFC attachments or first-party dongles to turn a smartphone into a payments terminal. The focus is a secure transfer of credentials over existing hardware protocols.

If adopted, Mobeewave's technology will allow Apple to compete head-to-head with online payment processors such as Square.