Apple Pay could finally launch in India next month after years of waiting

Apple Pay could finally be about to arrive in India, more than a decade after Apple first launched its mobile payments service in the United States.

Recent reports suggest Apple is now targeting an October 2026 launch, potentially opening Apple Pay to millions of iPhone and Apple Watch users in one of the world’s biggest digital payments markets.

Apple has been working with Indian banks and global card networks as it prepares the service for the country. As reported by Reuters, Apple has held talks with ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank, alongside global payment networks, over bringing Apple Pay to India.

The first version of Apple Pay in India is expected to focus on traditional card payments, allowing supported Visa and Mastercard cards to be added to Apple Wallet and used for contactless purchases from an iPhone or Apple Watch.

However, one of the biggest pieces of the Indian payments market could be missing initially. Reports suggest Apple Pay may launch without support for Unified Payments Interface, better known as UPI.

UPI is central to everyday digital payments in India and operates on a vastly different scale to the card-based contactless market Apple Pay has traditionally targeted. The network processed 24.51 billion transactions during August alone, according to figures reported by Reuters.

That means an Apple Pay launch without UPI would still be significant for Apple users, particularly those who want to use an iPhone or Apple Watch for tap-to-pay card transactions, but it would not immediately replace the payment services many people in India already use every day.

Apple could eventually go much further. Earlier reports have suggested the company has explored UPI integration, which could make Apple Pay considerably more competitive with established services in India.

India has become increasingly important to Apple in recent years, both as a major consumer market and as an increasingly important part of the company’s manufacturing operation. Bringing Apple Pay to the country would fill one of the more noticeable gaps in Apple’s services lineup there.

Apple Pay first launched in the United States in October 2014 and has since expanded across dozens of countries and regions, including the UK, where the service arrived in 2015.

An October launch would therefore end a wait of almost 12 years for Apple Pay in India and give Apple another major opportunity to deepen the iPhone and Apple Watch ecosystem in the country.