Apple in Talks to Bring Digital Wallet to India

Apple is reportedly talking with banks and card networks to launch Apple Pay in India.

The company is holding discussions with Indian lenders ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank with plans to introduce its digital wallet in the world’s most populous country in the middle of the year, Bloomberg News reported Thursday (Feb. 26), citing sources familiar with the matter.

In addition, Apple is discussing the plans with Visa and Mastercard, the sources said. The report characterizes this as another step in Apple’s effort to boost its business in India as that country’s middle class expands.

PYMNTS has contacted Apple for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.

Apple has also stepped up its manufacturing base in India, sourcing iPhones from the country last year to offset the cost of tariffs on goods shipped from China, the report added.

According to the Bloomberg report, Apple Pay in India is expected to support the popular country’s Unified Payments Interface, (UPI), as well as card-based payments. As Bloomberg notes, Apple will find itself competing with the likes of Google Pay, Walmart-backed PhonePe and Amazon — along with domestic companies like Paytm — for a share of India’s digital payments market.

The news follows a report from last month by the Indian business news outlet Moneycontrol that Apple was in talks with card networks and regulators to launch Apple Pay in the country.

As PYMNTS wrote earlier this month, use of Apple Pay in physical stores in the U.S. has doubled in the last year, but the mobile wallet processes just 1 out of every 10 eligible transactions and faces increasing competition from rivals that are growing even faster.

That’s according to “Apple Pay @11: Usage Is Up, but Competitors Are Gaining Ground,” a PYMNTS Intelligence report exploring the state of Apple Pay usage during 2025.

“While Apple Pay has grown its total sales volume from $268 billion to $450 billion this year, the platform accounts for just 10% of eligible in-store purchases and under 5% of transactions overall,” PYMNTS wrote. “When consumers do use mobile wallets to pay, they increasingly fund those purchases through digital balances alongside traditional credit and debit cards.”

The research showed a surge in in-store mobile wallet activity, with 31% of consumers using them weekly, compared to 14% in 2024. Apple Pay led this growth: 16% of consumers said they had used the service in stores during the previous week, double the share from 2024.

But rivals are gaining traction, with Google Pay usage more than doubling, and PayPal and Cash App both nearly doubling their in-store usage during the same period.