Apple Pay is finally launching in India after years on the sidelines

Apple began rolling out Apple Pay in India on Tuesday, as first reported by TechCrunch. Its primary banking partner is Axis Bank, the country’s third largest private sector lender. The move brings the company’s payments service to the world’s most populous country after years of delays in a market dominated by the state-backed United Payments Interface (UPI).

Initial launch is limited. Apple Pay supports eligible Axis Bank cards on Visa and Mastercard, but not the Indian RuPay network. Acceptance will also be reserved for merchants and payment terminals enabled for the service.

Apple said the service will be accepted by “millions of merchants” across India, including Blinkit, Croma, Ixigo, Reliance brands, Tata 1mg and Zomato. The company has partnered with payment providers including Cashfree, JusPay, Mswipe, Paytm, PayU, Pine Labs, Razorpay and Worldline to enable Apple Pay acceptance.

Unlike India’s ubiquitous Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system, which allows consumers to make instant bank-to-bank payments without relying on cards, Apple Pay is card-based and requires individual issuers and payment infrastructure providers to integrate with the service. This makes a large-scale implementation more complex. Apple’s business terms have also emerged as a sticking point with some of India’s largest banks, the sources said.

Apple charges a fee of about 20 basis points (0.2%) on transactions, according to people, a significant reduction of the approximately 40 to 50 basis points (0.4% to 0.5%) margin in the level of payments. The fee structure is broadly consistent with Apple Pay’s business model in other markets, the sources said. HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and SBI Card do not support Apple Pay at launch as negotiations on commercial terms continue, one of the people told TechCrunch.

Apple, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and SBI Card did not respond to requests for comment on the launch. Earlier this month, Reuters reported that Apple was preparing to launch Apple Pay in India in October, starting with Axis Bank credit cards.

Apple Pay has entered a payments market that appears markedly different from that of the United States and other card-intensive economies. India’s digital payments boom has been driven largely by UPI, the state-backed system that allows consumers to move money directly between bank accounts.

UPI handles the majority of digital payments in India, where scanning a QR code to pay directly from a bank account has become common practice. Apple Pay, in contrast, is initially aimed at a much smaller card payments market.

However, Apple Pay could appeal to India’s growing base of iPhone users, who tend to be wealthier and more likely to use premium credit cards. These customers could make the service difficult for banks to ignore, despite UPI’s dominance.

Even if Apple Pay remains a niche service, the economics could still make India significant for Apple. The transaction fee that the iPhone maker would charge would give it another way to monetize its growing base of iPhone users in the country, the people said.

At launch, eligible Axis Bank customers will be able to add their credit cards to Apple’s Wallet app and use Apple Pay for online purchases and contactless payments at supported terminals, the sources said.

An Apple Pay transaction might work on a terminal operated by an independent payments provider that has enabled the service but fail on another terminal whose acquiring bank has not, one of the people said. This may make acceptance uneven during the initial launch, even for customers with supported cards.

The launch adds another piece to Apple’s growing business in India, where it has expanded iPhone sales, local manufacturing and its retail presence. According to an earlier report by Counterpoint Research, Apple accounted for 28% of the Indian smartphone market by value in 2025, up from 23% a year earlier.

India already accounts for about a quarter of global iPhone production and that share could rise to 30-35% in the next five years, the Indian English newspaper Business Standard reported last month, citing an Indian government official.

Update: This story, originally published Tuesday morning, has been updated to reflect that the launch is now underway.