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As first reported by TechCrunch, Apple began rolling out Apple Pay in India on Tuesday. Its first 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 rollout is limited. Apple Pay supports eligible Axis Bank cards on Visa and Mastercard, but does not support India’s native RuPay network. Acceptance will also be limited to merchants and payment terminals that have this service enabled.
Apple says the service will be accepted by “millions of merchants” across India, including Blinkit, Croma, Ixigo, Reliance brands, Tata 1 mg and Zomato. The company has partnered with payment service 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 payments between banks without using cards, Apple Pay is card-based and requires integration with the service of individual issuers and payment infrastructure providers. This makes broad implementation more complex. Apple’s trading terms are also said to have emerged as a point of contention with some of India’s largest banks.
According to the review, Apple is charging a fee of around 20 basis points (0.2%) per transaction, which is a significant reduction from around 40 to 50 basis points (0.4% to 0.5%) of the margin in the payments tier. According to respondents, the fee structure is broadly consistent with the Apple Pay commercial model in other markets. HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and SBI Card do not support Apple Pay at launch as negotiations on commercial terms are ongoing, 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 is preparing to launch Apple Pay in India in October, starting with Axis Bank credit cards.
Apple Pay has entered a payments market that is markedly different from the United States and other card-intensive economies. The digital payments boom in India is largely driven by UPI, a state-backed system that allows consumers to transfer money directly between bank accounts.
UPI supports most digital payments in India, where scanning a QR code to pay directly from your bank account has become common. However, Apple Pay is initially addressed to a much smaller card payment market.
Nevertheless, Apple Pay could appeal to a growing group of iPhone users in India, who tend to be more affluent and more likely to use premium credit cards. These customers may make it difficult for banks to ignore this service, despite UPI’s dominance.
Even if Apple Pay remains a niche service, economic considerations could still make India relevant to Apple. A transaction fee charged by the iPhone maker would give it another way to cash in on the country’s growing iPhone user base, the people said.
From launch, eligible Axis Bank customers will be able to add their credit cards to the Apple Wallet app and use Apple Pay for online purchases, as well as contactless payments at supported terminals, the people said.
One person stated that an Apple Pay transaction could complete on a terminal operated by an independent payment service provider that enabled the service, but would fail on another terminal whose acquiring bank had not. This may result in uneven acceptance during initial rollout, even for customers with supported cards.
The launch adds to Apple’s growing business in India, where the company is expanding iPhone sales, local manufacturing and retail footprint. Apple had a share of 28% of the Indian smartphone market by value in 2025, up from 23% a year earlier, according to an earlier report by Counterpoint Research.
India already accounts for about a quarter of global iPhone production, and that share could increase to 30-35% over the next five years, India’s Business Standard daily 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.
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