Apple Re-enables Card Payments for App Store and iCloud in India After Five-Year Suspension
Apple has re-enabled credit and debit card payments for purchases on the App Store and iCloud subscriptions in India after a five-year suspension, following its compliance with the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) card tokenisation requirements.
According to a report by Moneycontrol, the feature is currently being tested with a limited group of users and will be rolled out gradually to all customers over the coming months.
Apple stopped accepting card payments in India in 2021 after the RBI introduced regulations prohibiting merchants from storing customers’ card details. Under the framework, only authorised card networks are permitted to store tokenised card data, which must also be stored within India.
During the suspension, Indian users could pay for App Store purchases and iCloud subscriptions only through UPI and net banking.
The report said Apple has now restored card payments after meeting the RBI’s tokenisation and data localisation requirements, expanding payment options for users in the country.
The company is also reportedly working with banks to introduce Apple Pay in India while coordinating with card networks to ensure full compliance with the RBI’s regulatory framework.
To comply with India’s data localisation rules, Apple will not mirror tokenised payment data of Indian users on its overseas servers, despite operating global payment infrastructure in the United States, Denmark, and China.
