It supports only Axis debit cards for now.
Apple Pay has arrived in India, making the contactless payment service available to the world’s most populous country. It took Apple over a decade since the inception of the feature to roll it out to market because they had to comply with local banking regulations.
For now, however, the feature only supports Visa and MasterCard credit cards issued by Axis Bank. It still doesn’t work with cards issued by other banks in the country, such as State Bank of India and HDFC Bank. And how TechCrunch Note, it does not support India’s local credit card network RuPay. The publication says that Apple wants to charge a 0.2 percent fee per transaction, and its terms are still under negotiation with the other banks.
In addition, it does not work on terminals that have not been activated for the payment method. The company said in its announcement that “millions of merchants across India” will accept Apple Pay at launch, including “Apple Store Locations, Blinkit, Chaayos, Comet, Croma, Interflora, Ixigo, Le15 Patisserie, Reliance brands, Tata 1mg, Zomato and more.”
As in other regions, users in India can add Axis Bank cards through the bank’s app or by tapping the plus sign in the wallet app and following instructions. The Indian smartphone market is still dominated by Android phones, but Counterpoint Research said CNBC that Apple’s volume market share is likely to reach 10 percent this year, thanks to strong demand for the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max.