Apple Pay arrives in India with a limited card rollout

Apple's entry into India's payments market gives its device users a new way to pay by card, but its initial reach will depend on bank and merchant integrations in a country where a domestic real-time system already dominates digital transactions. The service launched on September 30 for eligible Axis Bank Visa and Mastercard credit cardholders, placing Apple's wallet alongside, rather than replacing, India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI).