Apple Pay goes live in India with merchant support
Apple Pay is no longer a report. It launched with Axis Bank cards, and the aggregators most D2C brands already use have switched it on at checkout. What nobody has published is what it costs a merchant.
- It is real, and it is not only in store. Entrackr reported the launch on 30 September 2026: Axis Bank Visa and Mastercard credit cards, working at contactless enabled stores, in apps and online. Entrackr says Mac support is expected soon.
- Merchant enablement runs through gateways brands already use. Entrackr names Juspay, Cashfree, Mswipe, Paytm, PayU, Pine Labs, Razorpay and Worldline. Juspay said merchants on its network can add Apple Pay to existing online payment flows without a separate integration.
- Neither Entrackr nor Inc42 publishes a merchant discount rate, an interchange split or any merchant pricing. That figure is absent from both reports. We are not inferring one, so ask your gateway.
- Scope is still narrow. No UPI, no RuPay, credit cards from one issuer. Treat it as a checkout option to enable and measure, not a payment mix shift to plan around.
Apple Pay is live in India. Entrackr reported the launch on 30 September 2026, with Axis Bank as the first banking partner and Visa and Mastercard credit cards issued by Axis supported at launch. Inc42 carried the same launch that morning. On 18 September we wrote up the plan as an unconfirmed Reuters item resting on unnamed sources. That caveat is spent.
The part that matters to a brand is not the wallet, it is the merchant side. Entrackr names the payment infrastructure companies enabling Apple Pay across merchant networks: Juspay and Cashfree, along with Mswipe, Paytm, PayU, Pine Labs, Razorpay and Worldline. Juspay said merchants on its network can add Apple Pay to their existing online payment flows without building a separate integration. Cashfree has enabled it for its Indian business customers, and Apple said it worked with Cashfree and other payment service providers to reach their merchant networks in India.
So the answer to whether you have engineering work to do is probably no, and that is the whole story. If your gateway is on that list, this is a setting rather than a build. What we cannot tell you is the price. Neither report carries a merchant discount rate, an interchange number or any merchant pricing at all. It is absent, and we are not estimating it. Put the question to your gateway before you put the logo on your checkout.
Scope is the other half of the read. Apple Pay does not support UPI or RuPay at launch and is limited to eligible Visa and Mastercard credit cards from a single issuer. Entrackr lists acceptance at Apple Store locations, Blinkit, Chaayos, Comet, Croma, Interflora, Ixigo, Le15 Patisserie, Reliance brands, Tata 1mg and Zomato, and puts Apple Pay at more than 90 countries and more than 11,000 bank and network partners globally.
Read it as a premium card instrument arriving at your checkout, not a change in payment mix. Cards are a minority of Indian transaction volume, and this is one issuer’s credit cards on one hardware ecosystem. Enable it, watch the share it takes from card traffic specifically, and hold the rebuild. The signal worth tracking is a second and third issuer, because that is when the addressable cohort stops being a rounding error.
Zane’s analysis draws on original reporting by Entrackr. Read the original report.