Apple Pay is finally coming to India on a limited basis

Apple Pay has arrived in India, making the contactless payment service accessible to the world’s most populous country. It took Apple more than a decade since creating this feature to be able to roll it out to market because it had to comply with local banking regulations.

For now, however, the feature only supports Visa and MasterCard credit cards issued by Axis Bank. It still does not work with cards issued by other banks in the country, such as State Bank of India and HDFC Bank. And like TechCrunch Notes, it does not support local Indian credit card network RuPay. The publication states that Apple wants to charge a fee of 0.2% per transaction and that its terms are still being negotiated with other banks.

Additionally, it will not work on terminals that are not enabled for the payment method. The company said in its announcement that “millions of merchants across India” will accept Apple Pay at launch, including “Apple Stores, Blinkit, Chaayos, Comet, Croma, Interflora, Ixigo, Le15 Patisserie, Reliance brands, Tata 1mg, Zomato and more.”

Like other regions, users in India can add Axis Bank cards through the bank’s app or by tapping the plus sign in the Wallet app and following the instructions. The Indian smartphone market is still dominated by Android phones, according to Counterpoint Research. CNBC that Apple’s volume market share is expected to reach 10% this year, thanks to strong demand for the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max.