Apple Pay finally lands in India with Axis Bank credit cards

It took more than a decade to reach India

On September 30, Apple Pay finally went live in India. Axis Bank, the country's third-largest private lender, became the first Indian bank to carry the service, giving the wallet its first foothold in one of the world's largest digital payments markets.

The rollout began a day earlier. TechCrunch first reported the switch-on on Tuesday, September 29, with Axis Bank confirming the launch publicly on Wednesday. India had been one of the few major economies where Apple Pay was still unavailable.

"India is home to a dynamic and digitally savvy population that continues to embrace a cashless future while expecting the highest standards of security and privacy, and we're so excited to bring Apple Pay to users in India today," Jennifer Bailey, Apple's vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet, said in a statement.

The timing is not accidental. Apple has been expanding iPhone sales, local manufacturing, and its retail footprint in India. Apple accounted for 28% of India's smartphone market by value in 2025, up from 23% a year earlier, according to Counterpoint Research. India also accounts for about a quarter of global iPhone production, a share that could rise to 30-35% over the next five years, the Business Standard reported last month, citing a government official.

Who can use it right now

The door is narrow at launch. Only Axis Bank credit cards issued on the Visa and Mastercard networks are eligible. Cards on the homegrown RuPay network are excluded. Axis Bank is India's fourth-largest credit card issuer, with 16.3 million cards outstanding as of August, out of 124 million nationwide, according to central bank data.

Adding a card takes minutes. Customers can add eligible cards through the Axis Bank mobile app or directly in Apple Wallet, then make payments in stores, in apps, and online using an iPhone, Apple Watch, or iPad. There is no need to type in a card PIN or wait for an OTP; each transaction is authenticated with Face ID, Touch ID, or the device passcode.

Security is the pitch Apple leads with. According to Axis Bank's statement, when a credit card is used with Apple Pay, the actual card number is not stored on the device or on Apple's servers, and Apple does not share it with the merchant. Customers also keep the rewards and other benefits offered on their Axis Bank credit cards.

Apple said the service would be accepted by "millions of merchants" across India, including Blinkit, Croma, Ixigo, Reliance brands, Tata 1mg, and Zomato. Behind the scenes, the company has worked with payment providers including Cashfree, JusPay, Mswipe, Paytm, PayU, Pine Labs, Razorpay, and Worldline to enable acceptance. Support for Mac is expected to be added soon.

"We are at a significant inflection point in payments, where technology, intelligent security and changing customer expectations are reshaping how people transact," Amitabh Chaudhry, Axis Bank's managing director and CEO, said in the bank's statement.

Where it works, and where it won't yet

Acceptance will be patchy at first, and Apple knows it. One person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that an Apple Pay transaction "could work at a terminal operated by an independent payments provider that has enabled the service but fail at another terminal whose acquiring bank has not."

The unevenness is built into the model. Unlike UPI, which lets consumers 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. That makes a broad rollout more complex, and the early months will be a patchwork of terminals that accept it and terminals that don't.

Why India's biggest banks are holding out

Money is the sticking point. According to people familiar with the matter, Apple is seeking a fee of about 20 basis points, or 0.2%, on transactions, a significant bite out of the roughly 40 to 50 basis points of margin in the payments layer. The fee structure is broadly consistent with Apple's commercial model in other markets, they said.

HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and SBI Card are not supporting Apple Pay at launch, with negotiations over commercial terms still underway, one of the people told TechCrunch. Reuters had reported earlier in September that Apple held talks with HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank without agreeing commercial terms. Apple, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and SBI Card did not respond to requests for comment on the launch.

The UPI-shaped problem

Here is the hard part for Apple. India is not a card market. Its payments boom was built on the Unified Payments Interface, the real-time bank transfer system that accounts for 84% of digital payment volumes and is the world's largest retail fast-payment system by transaction volume, according to a 2025 IMF report. Scanning a QR code to pay directly from a bank account has become commonplace.

	Apple Pay	UPI
Payment model	Card-based; each bank and payment provider must integrate separately	Real-time bank-to-bank transfers
Who can use it	Axis Bank Visa and Mastercard credit card holders, at launch	Consumers paying directly from bank accounts via QR code
Authentication	Face ID, Touch ID, or device passcode; no PIN or OTP	—
Share of digital payments	A narrow premium-card segment; RuPay excluded	84% of volumes; world's largest retail fast-payment system by volume, per a 2025 IMF report
Apple's cut	About 0.2% of each transaction, per people familiar with the matter	—

That does not mean Apple Pay has no constituency. It could appeal to India's growing base of iPhone users, who tend to be more affluent and are more likely to use premium credit cards, TechCrunch reports. Those customers could make the service hard for banks to ignore, despite UPI's dominance.

Even if Apple Pay remains a niche service, the economics could still make India meaningful for Apple. The transaction fee would give the company another way to monetize its growing base of iPhone users in the country, according to people familiar with the matter.

What to watch

The real contest now is commercial. Watch whether HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and SBI Card reach terms with Apple, whether RuPay ever makes the cut, and how quickly payment providers switch on the service at terminals across the country. If the fee talks drag on, Apple Pay stays a niche for Axis Bank's premium customers. If they don't, tap-to-pay on an iPhone could quietly become part of India's checkout counters.