- By Prateek Levi
- Wed, 21 Jan 2026 06:45 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Apple Pay in India Update: The Cupertino-based tech giant is currently in talks with Indian regulatory bodies and banking parties to discuss the introduction of Apple Pay services in the country. Rumours of its imminent launch have already started to circulate and have grown over the past few weeks, but people familiar with the matter press that Apple Pay still remains unavailable for everyday domestic usage in India.
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Currently, Apple Pay's presence in the country is quite restricted, with only cross-border payments active. Some indigenous payment gateways like Razorpay and Cashfree have Apple Pay enabled for checkout but for international customers buying from Indian vendors. This allows overseas users to complete their transactions on Indian e-commerce platforms using Apple Pay cards. Although the services of Apple Pay are not available for Indian users locally.
Restrictions To Apple Pay
This difference in payments that exists right now is very critical for India users. No Indian credit or debit card is currently supported by Apple Pay, either in the Wallet app, and it does no work for store payments, metro travel or QR code-based transactions either.
For now the Unified Payments Interface dominates the payments scenario in India, which comes under the direct vigilance of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). If we look at this framework, then any appeal by Apple to launch its payment gateway would require deep integration with the NPCI structure, compliance with the Apex Bank authority, the RBI, as well as integration with other payment systems as well. These processes have made it difficult for global players in the wallet industry to establish their foothold in the country.
What Experts Say
Experts in the industry point out that Apple might take this approach in a phased manner and begin with cross-border acceptance, then limited pilot exercises on a domestic scale, which might lead to a wider rollout eventually tied with UPI and Indian banks. For now the arrival of Apple Pay is still far away rather than an immediate imminent launch, and iPhone users will still have to use the current UPI-enabled apps that are currently in the country for their daily needs.
Although Apple is making some strides in this region, Apple Pay has now started to appear as a trustworthy option to carry out international bookings and other services offered by Indian merchants. Building on this, Akasa Air has recently started to accept Apple Pay, making it one of the first Indian airlines to accept a global wallet player to book international flights. This points towards a growing readiness amongst Indian vendors to hop on to Apple's payment platform.