Apple Pay enters India with help from merchant acquirers

Apple Pay launched in India on Sept. 30, 2026, with Axis Bank as its first issuer and a group of payment service providers extending acceptance across merchant networks in one of the world's largest digital-payment markets.

Axis Bank customers with eligible Visa and Mastercard credit cards can now add those cards to Apple Pay and use them in stores, apps and online. RuPay cards are not included in the initial rollout.

Before the rollout, Apple said it worked with payment providers including BillDesk, Cashfree, Juspay, Mswipe, Paytm, PayU, Pine Labs and Razorpay to bring Apple Pay to their merchant networks. The company said millions of Indian merchants would accept the wallet at launch, including retailers, restaurants, travel companies and online businesses.

"India is home to a dynamic and digitally savvy population that continues to embrace a cashless future," said Jennifer Bailey, Apple's vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet. She added that the service is intended to give consumers a secure way to pay without entering card details, PINs or one-time passwords at checkout.

Acquirers extend acceptance

The launch highlights the role merchant acquirers and payment service providers play in expanding digital-wallet acceptance.

Rather than building merchant acceptance market by market on its own, Apple is relying on existing PSP relationships to extend Apple Pay across merchant portfolios. Those providers already connect merchants to card acceptance, checkout software and related payment services, giving Apple an established path into stores and online checkouts.

For acquirers and payment providers, supporting Apple Pay also expands the range of payment credentials merchants can accept without requiring a new consumer-facing payment experience. Apple Pay transactions use tokenized card credentials, while merchants continue to receive card payments through familiar acceptance infrastructure.

Mastercard and Visa both emphasized tokenization in announcing support for the launch. Mastercard said each Apple Pay transaction uses a unique cryptographically secured token so actual card details are not shared with merchants.

A card wallet enters a UPI market

Apple Pay is entering a market where card payments compete with an unusually dominant account-to-account system. India's Unified Payments Interface accounts for about 84 percent of digital payments by transaction volume and is the world's largest retail fast-payment system, according to Reuters.

UPI processed 24.51 billion transactions worth about $314 billion in August alone. That means Apple Pay's challenge in India differs from its early expansion in markets where cards were already the dominant digital payment method. It is introducing a tokenized card wallet into an ecosystem where consumers are accustomed to instant bank-account payments through UPI.

Apple is not positioning Apple Pay as a replacement for UPI. Instead, the launch adds another payment option for eligible cardholders while giving merchants access through existing acquiring and PSP relationships.

For the payments industry, India provides a significant test of how a global card-based wallet can establish itself alongside an entrenched domestic real-time payment network.

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