Apple launched Apple Pay in India on Wednesday , partnering with Axis Bank as its first local banking partner to bring contactless and online payments to iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch users in the country.
Axis Bank customers can add eligible Visa and Mastercard credit cards to the Apple Wallet app and use them at supported in-store terminals and online merchants, the company said. Support for Mac is coming soon. Apple Pay does not require a PIN or one-time password at checkout, relying instead on Face ID, Touch ID, or a device passcode to authenticate payments.
The launch is narrow in scope. At launch, only eligible Axis Bank cards on the Visa and Mastercard networks are supported, leaving out India's domestically developed RuPay network, according to TechCrunch . HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and SBI Card are not supporting the service at launch as negotiations over commercial terms continue. Apple wants roughly 20 basis points per transaction, which would consume a meaningful share of the approximately 40 to 50 basis points that make up the economics of the payments layer, according to TechCrunch.
Apple said the service will be accepted by millions of merchants in India, including Blinkit, Croma, Ixigo, Reliance brands, Tata 1mg, and Zomato. Payment service providers including Cashfree, Juspay, Mswipe, Paytm, PayU, Pine Labs, and Razorpay have integrated with Apple Pay to enable acceptance across their merchant networks, the company said.
Apple Pay is stepping into a market defined by the state-backed Unified Payments Interface, or UPI, a system so deeply embedded in daily life that scanning a QR code to settle a bill from a bank account is now routine across the country. India's payments landscape is led by Alphabet's Google Pay, Walmart-owned PhonePe, and local player Paytm, according to Bloomberg . Because it depends on card infrastructure rather than bank-to-bank transfers, Apple Pay is competing for a considerably narrower slice of India's overall payments activity, according to TechCrunch. Bloomberg previously reported that the service is expected to expand over time to support additional banks and UPI.
Security features include a device-specific account number stored in the phone's Secure Element chip. Apple said card numbers are never held on its servers, and that it keeps no record of transactions linked to specific users.
"Apple Pay makes everyday payments with a card easy, secure, and private — from simply tapping to pay in stores without an extra app, PIN, or OTP to checking out online without repeatedly entering payment information," Jennifer Bailey, Apple's vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet, said in a statement.
Apple Pay is now available in more than 90 countries and works with more than 11,000 bank and network partners worldwide, the company said.
