Apple Pay Reportedly Set for India Launch in October

Apple Pay could launch in India as early as October after more than a decade, starting with Axis Bank credit cards while UPI support remains uncertain.

Apple is preparing to launch Apple Pay in India as early as October, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter. Gurman said the service, first introduced in the US in 2014 and now available in more than 90 countries, is finally set to arrive in one of the few major economies where it has never operated. Multiple outlets, including The Times of India, Hindustan Times and GSMArena, corroborated the October timeline, with GSMArena noting the launch could come by the end of the month. The service has been in talks with Indian banks and payment networks since at least February, when Bloomberg reported discussions with Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Visa and Mastercard, with a mid-2026 launch target that ultimately slipped.

Apple Pay's arrival in India has been rumoured for years without materialising, making this the first concrete signal that the long wait may actually end. Hindustan Times notes the service debuted in the US back in 2014 but has never officially launched in India despite the country's enormous digital payments market. TrueTech reports that discussion of bringing Apple Pay to India dates back to 2017, when the company was denied key regulatory approvals. The timing is also notable because it lands amid a contested change in India's payments economics: a new 0.4 per cent merchant discount rate on certain UPI transactions above Rs 2,000 takes effect on October 15, according to Business Standard, reshaping the landscape Apple is entering.

According to a Reuters report cited by The Times of India, Axis Bank is expected to be Apple's first major banking partner, with Apple Pay initially supporting Axis Bank credit cards. The Indian Express reports that Apple is also in discussions with HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, though commercial agreements with those lenders had not been finalised. Business Standard details Apple's revenue model: the company would take 15 to 20 basis points of interchange fee on transactions, funded from banks' card-transaction earnings rather than charged separately to customers or merchants. The RBI's 2025 rules allowing biometric authentication for digital payments are crucial groundwork, since Apple Pay relies on Face ID or Touch ID to approve payments, the Indian Express notes.

Whether Apple Pay will support UPI at launch is the biggest open question. Gurman's report says the service is expected to support UPI alongside card payments, according to The Times of India and Hindustan Times. However, Reuters' report on Apple's India plans did not mention UPI as part of the initial rollout, and earlier reporting suggested Apple Pay could launch without UPI, with support added later. Business Standard reports that UPI integration would require clearance from the National Payments Corporation of India and a sponsor bank, and that neither Apple nor NPCI has confirmed such integration or its timing. For now, the launch should be viewed primarily as a card-based contactless payment service.

Apple Pay is entering one of the world's most competitive payments markets with a deliberately narrow proposition. Business Standard reports that UPI accounts for about 84 per cent of India's digital payment transaction volume, processed 24.51 billion transactions in August, and is dominated by PhonePe and Google Pay, which together handle roughly 80 per cent of UPI payment value. NPCI has already introduced its own UPI tap-and-pay feature using NFC, so Apple's arrival will not introduce contactless payments to India by itself. Still, India offers Apple a growing premium user base: Counterpoint Research data cited by Reuters and the Indian Express shows Apple's share of India's smartphone market has doubled to 8 per cent since 2022, and India is central to Apple's services-revenue ambitions.

If the October timeline holds, Apple Pay will launch with limited banking support before expanding through separate agreements with additional lenders, according to Reuters reporting cited by The Times of India and Hindustan Times. Talks with HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank are ongoing, and Apple had previously been negotiating with card issuers over its share of interchange fees. Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau told Business Standard that Apple Pay's entry could support growth in India's credit card transactions, which were already growing 10 to 15 per cent. The decisive variable is UPI: NPCI approval would let Apple Pay plug into the rail most Indians actually use, and both Hindustan Times and TrueTech report Apple may be awaiting those clearances, making an eventual UPI integration the key thing to watch.