Apple Pay May Launch In India Next Month With Axis Bank Partnership: Report

Apple is reportedly preparing to launch Apple Pay in India as early as next month, with Axis Bank lined up as its first banking partner, according to Reuters, which cited people familiar with the matter. If the timeline holds, the launch would cap off nearly a decade of on-and-off attempts by Apple to bring its payments service to one of the few major economies where it still isn’t available.

What’s Being Reported

According to the report, Apple intends to start narrow rather than broad, enabling Axis Bank credit cards on Apple Pay first, then adding more banks over time, following the same phased pattern Apple has used when launching the service in other markets. Apple has also reportedly held talks with HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, but those discussions haven’t yet produced agreement on commercial terms, meaning both lenders remain outside the initial launch group for now.

Axis Bank sits at the fourth spot among India’s credit card issuers by size, trailing HDFC Bank, SBI Cards, and ICICI Bank, and had roughly 16.26 million active credit cards in circulation as of July, based on Reserve Bank of India figures cited in the coverage. Apple has not responded publicly to questions about the report as of this writing.

Why This Has Taken Almost Ten Years

Apple has been circling an India launch for close to a decade, and the delay has mostly come down to regulation rather than lack of interest. The turning point arrived last year, when the RBI expanded the list of permitted authentication methods for card payments to include biometrics. That change is what actually makes an Apple Pay rollout technically workable in India, since it allows a transaction made with an Indian bank’s card to be authenticated through Face ID or Touch ID instead of the OTP-based flow that Indian card payments have historically relied on.

A second, related shift came in July 2026, when Apple resumed accepting Visa and Mastercard credit and debit cards for purchases made through an Apple Account in India, ending a suspension that had lasted four years. The timing of that move lines up closely with the broader payments push now being reported, and likely cleared some of the groundwork for it.

What the Service Will and Won’t Do at Launch

Several reports converge on a similar picture of what an initial rollout would actually look like: a card-based, NFC tap-to-pay service, supporting Visa and Mastercard credit cards, with no UPI support at launch.

Bringing UPI into the fold would require Apple to separately secure approval from the National Payments Corporation of India and line up a sponsor bank to route those transactions, neither of which Apple appears to have in place yet, according to earlier Economic Times reporting. Practically, that means Apple Pay’s user base at launch would be limited to Apple device owners who also happen to hold a card from a participating bank, a considerably smaller slice of the market than what UPI already reaches.

The Market Apple Pay Is Stepping Into

Whatever shape the launch takes, it lands in a market UPI has already claimed decisively. UPI currently accounts for roughly 84% of India’s digital payment transaction volumes, and it already offers its own contactless option, UPI Tap & Pay, which lets users tap an NFC-enabled phone against a compatible terminal, even though the mechanics behind it differ from the card-tokenisation approach Apple Pay is expected to use.

Apple’s actual foothold in India gives it a real, if limited, starting point. The company has grown its share of India’s smartphone market to around 8% since 2022, according to Reuters, and separate data from Counterpoint Research put Apple’s share of India’s smartphone shipments at 12% in the fourth quarter of 2025, driven largely by iPhone demand. Speaking on Pine Labs’ June-quarter earnings call, CEO Amrish Rau said he expects Apple Pay to arrive in India before the end of 2026, and suggested it could push credit card usage higher rather than eat into UPI’s dominance, pointing to card volumes already growing at 10 to 15% a year.

There are also small, on-the-ground signs that preparation is already underway. Some Axis Bank cardholders, on card variants including Select, Ace, and Rewards, have reported that attempting to add their card to Apple Wallet now surfaces a new terms-and-conditions screen, even though the process doesn’t yet complete. That’s a fairly typical sign of backend work happening ahead of a public rollout, though it isn’t confirmation of anything official.

Timing Still Isn’t Locked Down

Different reports put the launch window slightly differently. Reuters’ latest sourcing points to a launch as early as next month, while an earlier Economic Times report had suggested late September or October, timed loosely to Apple’s annual iPhone launch cycle. None of this has been confirmed by Apple directly, no date, no partner bank, and no final feature set, so everything here should be read as reported detail rather than a company announcement, and it could still shift before anything actually goes live.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Apple Pay officially launching in India? Not yet confirmed by Apple itself. Reuters and several other outlets report, citing people familiar with the matter, that a launch is being planned for as early as next month, with Axis Bank as the first banking partner.

Which bank will support Apple Pay first in India? Axis Bank is reported to be Apple’s first partner. HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank are also in discussions but haven’t finalised commercial terms yet.

Will Apple Pay support UPI when it launches? Reports suggest not initially. The first version is expected to support Visa and Mastercard credit cards only, since bringing UPI on board would require separate approval from NPCI and a sponsor-bank tie-up Apple hasn’t secured yet.

Why has it taken Apple almost a decade to launch Apple Pay in India? Regulatory requirements around payment authentication were the main obstacle. That changed last year when the RBI allowed biometric authentication methods, like Face ID and Touch ID, for card transactions, which made a technical rollout of Apple Pay in India realistic for the first time.

How would Apple Pay actually work if it launches in India? As a card-based, NFC tap-to-pay service. Users would store tokenised versions of their card details on an iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, or Mac, and authenticate payments through Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode instead of handing over a physical card.

How does Apple Pay’s expected reach compare to UPI? UPI already handles about 84% of India’s digital payment volumes, so Apple Pay would be starting from a small base, limited at first to Apple device owners holding cards from whichever banks have signed on.

When exactly will Apple Pay launch in India? Still unconfirmed. The most recent Reuters reporting points to as early as next month, while an earlier report had suggested late September or October 2026. Apple hasn’t given an official date.

This article is based on media reporting from Reuters, Business Standard, Economic Times, and other outlets as of September 18, 2026. Apple has not officially confirmed the partnership, launch date, or feature set described here, and these details may change before any official announcement.