Overview
- Apple has enabled Apple Pay for eligible Axis Bank credit cards on the Visa and Mastercard networks, allowing customers to add cards to Wallet for online and contactless payments.
- The rollout is constrained because merchants and payment terminals must enable Apple Pay and some acquiring banks have not done so, which may cause transactions to work at some terminals but fail at others.
- India’s RuPay network and major issuers including HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and SBI Card were not supporting Apple Pay at launch, leaving the service limited to a narrow set of cardholders.
- Apple is reported to be seeking about 20 basis points per transaction, a fee that sources say is cutting into the typical 40–50 basis-point margin for issuers and is the main sticking point in ongoing negotiations.
- The launch, reported Tuesday by multiple outlets, enters a market dominated by UPI—India’s bank-to-bank system that handles roughly 84% of digital volume—and is most likely to appeal to wealthier iPhone users and premium cardholders.