Apple Pay, the new mobile payment service from Apple will be available in October. So, how does it work and what will Apple Pay mean for small business owners? It will allow iPhone 6 users to upload their credit card information onto their phones and then make purchases through Apple Pay. No physical credit card will be required and a fingerprint will be used to authorize the purchase instead of a signature. As merchants, in order to accept Apple Pay you must have a credit card terminal equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) payment technology. Square, which many small businesses use to process credit card payments, has announced that they will be creating a register that includes NFC technology soon. If it is successful Apple Pay should make processing payments quicker and easier. It should also be more secure than traditional credit card payments because merchants will never receive customers’ actual credit card numbers. This is especially good news for businesses because beginning in 2015, merchants can be held liable for processing fraudulent credit card transactions. It remains to be seen whether or not Apple Pay will be widely adopted but so far over 200,000 merchants including McDonald’s, Walgreens and Staples have said they will be ready to accept payments through Apple Pay when it becomes available next month.