Apple began rolling out Apple Pay in India on September 29 with Axis Bank, a private-sector lender based in Mumbai.

Eligible Axis Bank Visa and Mastercard cardholders can add cards to Apple’s Wallet app for online purchases and contactless payments.

The launch is limited. Apple Pay does not support RuPay at launch, and it works only at merchants and payment terminals that have enabled the service.

Several large card issuers, including HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and SBI Card, are not participating at launch as talks over commercial terms continue.

Apple was seeking about 20 basis points, or 0.2%, per transaction.

Apple’s support pages now list India among Apple Pay markets, though the available extract from its participating-banks page did not include a detailed list of Indian issuers.

Unlike India’s dominant Unified Payments Interface, Apple Pay is card-based.

Phone-based card tap payments are already available in India through other wallets, and contactless card use is also rising, though the available research did not quantify payment terminal coverage.

🔗 Source: TechCrunch

Recent Apple developments