- Apple Pay is finally rolling out in India with Axis Bank as its first partner.
- Allowing NFC-backed payments, the Apple Pay will be a great tool for contactless payments on iPhones, Apple Watch, and Mac.
- It will compete against Samsung Pay and Google Pay which are currently taking up a major chunk of digital payments app in the country.
Apple Pay in India has finally arrived, bringing contactless payments to users in the country. The service is currently available with Axis Bank credit cards on the Visa and Mastercard networks, allowing eligible cardholders to make payments using Apple Pay.
Apple Pay in India: which cards are supported?
According to the press release, Apple Pay works on Axis Bank’s credit cards under the Mastercard or Visa network only. This means if you have any other cards, it won’t be supported as of now. The Cupertino giant is working with major banks such as ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, and SBI Card; however, it is not approved as of now and thus, not supported. In fact, India’s domestic card network, RuPay, is not compatible with Apple Pay as well.
You should be able to add compatible cards to the Apple Pay app in India. After that, you should be able to do contactless payments on your iPhone and Apple Watch. The only requirement is that merchants will have to add Apple Pay support on their POS terminals, without which the payment method may not work.
India is home to approx. 15 million iPhones. Although Apple Pay has been available in most countries, it has been mired in the regulations imposed by the Government of India, making it difficult to roll out in the country.
Google Pay and Samsung Pay are hugely popular in the country, which means Apple Pay will have to compete with these bigwigs as it comes to India. It will also have to face the wrath of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a state-backed system that has made it extremely easy to do peer-to-peer and peer-to-merchant payments.
Watch this space as we bring updates on how Apple Pay fares in the country post-launch.
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