Apple Pay is coming to India after twelve years, and only for Axis Bank credit cards
Apple Pay reportedly reaches India in October on Axis Bank credit cards only. No UPI, no RuPay, and the fee fight behind the delay isn't settled.
Not today’s newsApple hasn't confirmed a date, but reports point to October. The wait started in 2014, and for anyone without an Axis card it isn't over.
Apple Pay launched in September 2014. If the reports are right, India gets it in October 2026. For twelve years, iPhones sold here have carried a tap-to-pay chip with nothing to tap against. I want to go through why, because the answer says more about the launch than the launch does.
Why it took twelve years
There were two blockers, and they stopped being technical fairly early.
The first was the one-time password. Card payments in India relied on an SMS OTP for a long time, and Apple Pay authenticates with Face ID or Touch ID. The RBI allowed biometric authentication in 2025, which cleared that.
The second was the fee. Business Standard reported in August that Apple wants 15 to 20 basis points of the interchange on every card payment made through Apple Pay. The large issuers offered around 10. That gap is the likely reason HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank aren’t part of the first batch, even though Apple has been talking to both. Axis Bank agreed first. It’s the fourth largest credit card issuer here, behind HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and SBI Card.
What you get on day one
Reports say Visa and Mastercard credit cards from Axis. No RuPay and no UPI. Bizz India ran it as breaking news on its social channels, and the wire reports say the same.
Illustration by Long Press. Not an official Apple screen.
That matters because UPI handles around 85% of digital payment volume in India. A lot of small shops only take UPI. A tap-to-pay feature that works at card terminals, for a few credit cards, reaches iPhone owners (roughly 7 to 9 percent of phones here, by one estimate) who also hold one of those cards and shop somewhere with a terminal. I’d guess that’s a small group.
Apple had aimed higher at one point. In 2023 TechCrunch reported it was building a UPI version, where an iPhone could scan a QR code and approve with Face ID without going through any other payments app. That would have been useful to a lot more people. It didn’t ship, and the card version did.
There is one clear gain for people who already own an iPhone. Since 2022, the only ways to pay for iCloud+ or Apple Music from India were UPI, net banking or topping up an Apple Account balance. Reports say cardholders will be able to pay directly now. That’s minor but real.
What I’ll be watching
Which banks sign after Axis. If HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and SBI Card come on, this becomes an ordinary part of owning an iPhone with a good card. If they don’t, it stays limited to one bank’s customers. The fee dispute will decide that.
Whether UPI happens at all. It needs approval from NPCI plus a sponsor bank to route the payments, and Apple has neither. As far as I know UPI is free for most merchants, which means there’s no interchange for Apple to share. Apple would be adding a nicer interface to a system it doesn’t control and earning nothing from it. That isn’t how Apple usually likes to work. NPCI is also reported to have launched its own tap-to-pay on UPI a little over a week before the Reuters story. If that’s accurate, the people who run UPI are already building what Apple would have offered.
Whether anyone’s habits change. I don’t think they will. Most people here already pay with their phone, and they’ve done it through UPI since 2016. Apple Pay should do fine as a perk for premium cardholders. I’d be surprised if it changes how most of the country pays.
Sources
- Apple Pay is heading to India next month with Axis Bank first, Reuters reports, The Next Web
- Apple Pay launch in October: Cards at launch, but UPI could be big question, Business Standard
- Apple Pay set to launch in India by October, without UPI support, MediaNama
- Apple restarts talks for Apple Pay launch in India, TechCrunch, 2023
- Bizz India carried the cards-only, no-UPI report as a breaking-news graphic on its social channels.
The card issuers, so far. The delay came down to how much of each swipe fee Apple gets, and until that's settled the big banks keep their customers to themselves.
The operator’s readThe sticking point was Apple's cut of each card swipe, and the big banks said no to that number for years.
Axis agreed first, which is the only reason there's a launch at all. I'd expect HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank to wait and see how many Axis customers actually use it before they move.
Swami Guru · Eleven years leading productIf you have an iPhone and an Axis credit card, turn it on. If you don't, nothing changes for you until HDFC Bank or ICICI Bank signs on, or UPI support arrives.