NXP Semiconductors, the co-creator of near field communication (NFC) technology, has been in talks to supply Apple with NFC chips for the iPhone 6, according to sources close to the company.

We’ve reached out to NXP and will update this post when they respond.

NFC technology has been a rumored addition for the iPhone since the first few iterations of the smartphone. A near field communication chip allows devices within a close proximity to communicate with each other. While most devices — including most Android devices — have an NFC chip inside, the iPhone has yet to adopt this technology. This, in turn, has contributed to the stalled adoption of the technology in fields such as payments.

An NFC-capable iPhone could have wide implications for the technology world. Though the Android worldwide market share dominates Apple’s iOS, iPhone’s are still the single most popular device in the United States. In Europe, where NFC-enabled devices are more common, contactless payments are considerably more advanced.

This news comes as Apple seems to be preparing a mobile wallet of its own, presumably at the iPhone 6 launch event, which is likely to be held on September  9. Tech site The Information reported that Apple has inked a partnership with Visa and that the mobile wallet could be coming as soon as this fall. In addition, analysts have said that the new Visa Checkout could be appealing to tech companies like Apple and that they foresee a “partnership” on the horizon between the Silicon Valley giant and Visa.

Apple executives have been talking up their authentication capability and how it relates to the payments industry as well. Earlier this year, CEO Tim Cook announced that Apple had 800 million iTunes accounts, most of which have credit cards attached to them. Cook also expressed interest in developing a mobile payments system in an earnings call, saying:

The mobile payments area in general is one that we’ve been intrigued with, and that was one of the thoughts behind Touch ID. You can tell by looking at the demographics of our customers, and the amount of commerce that goes through iOS devices versus the competition, that it’s a big opportunity on the platform.