Apple Pay is expected to launch in India next month, starting with Axis Bank credit cards, Reuters reported on September 18, 2026, citing three sources who spoke on condition of anonymity. Apple did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment, and nothing has been confirmed publicly.
A biometrics rule removed India’s main barrier
The obstacle was regulatory, not commercial. India required a one-time passcode sent by text message to authenticate card payments, which in practice ruled out a wallet built on device biometrics. The Reserve Bank of India’s authentication directions, issued in September 2025 and in force since April 2026, now let issuers accept the phone’s native biometrics instead of the SMS code.
That opens the door to Face ID or a fingerprint as the authentication method for a card payment, and so to a device maker’s wallet. The change also helps other wallets that ran into the same constraint.
Banks and Apple are split over the per-transaction fee
The sticking point is the fee the issuer pays the wallet on every transaction. Apple reportedly asked for 15 to 20 basis points, while banks offered about 10. The gap looks small, but across an issuer with millions of cards it decides whether the program pays for the bank.
Talks with HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, both larger issuers than Axis, have reportedly not produced an agreement on commercial terms. The rollout would therefore go bank by bank, each negotiating its own deal. That explains why Apple would launch with the fourth-largest issuer rather than the largest.
Apple Pay enters through cards in a market that runs on UPI
The launch would cover only Visa and Mastercard credit cards, with no UPI. Yet India’s national instant payment rail accounts for about 84% of the country’s digital payment volume. A wallet without UPI targets a minority of payments, credit and higher-value purchases, not everyday spending.
- Cards remain the instrument for big-ticket purchases and credit, where the margin is.
- UPI carries the volume, but it stayed free for merchants until the fee schedule that takes effect on October 15, 2026.
- A device maker’s wallet fits where there is a fee to share.
- Contactless acceptance in stores, not just card enrollment, will determine real usage.
For providers selling acceptance in India, the impact will show up at the point of sale. A device maker’s wallet needs a working base of contactless terminals and issuers ready to tokenize their cards. Everything else, including the timing, awaits confirmation from Apple or Axis Bank.