Apple is bringing Apple Pay to India, launching the card-based payment service on Tuesday with Axis Bank as its first banking partner — a long-awaited entry into the world's most populous market, where UPI has made QR-code bank transfers the default way to pay.
The initial rollout is deliberately narrow. Apple Pay will support eligible Axis Bank cards on the Visa and Mastercard networks but not RuPay, India's homegrown card scheme, and will be accepted only at merchants and terminals that have been enabled for it. Because Apple Pay is card-based, each issuer and acquiring bank has to integrate separately — meaning a transaction can succeed at one terminal and fail at the one next door.
Commercial terms have become the sticking point. Apple is seeking a fee of about 20 basis points per transaction, according to people familiar with the matter — a significant slice of the roughly 40 to 50 basis points of margin that sits in the Indian payments layer. That structure is broadly consistent with Apple Pay's model in other markets. HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and SBI Card are not expected to support the service at launch while negotiations continue. Apple, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and SBI Card declined to comment; Reuters reported earlier this month that a launch with Axis Bank credit cards was being prepared for October.
India's payments landscape looks markedly different from the card-heavy economies Apple Pay knows best. UPI, the state-backed system that moves money directly between bank accounts, handles the bulk of digital payments, and scanning a QR code has become commonplace. Apple Pay initially addresses a much smaller card payments market.
Still, India's growing base of iPhone users tends to be wealthier and more likely to hold premium credit cards, which could make the service hard for banks to ignore. At launch, eligible Axis Bank customers will be able to add credit cards to Apple's Wallet app and pay online and at enabled contactless terminals. Apple accounted for 28% of India's smartphone market by value in 2025, up from 23% a year earlier, according to Counterpoint Research, and the country already accounts for roughly a quarter of global iPhone production.
