Apple Restores Card Payments in India After Four-Year RBI Compliance Push

Apple has restored Visa and Mastercard payments for App Store purchases and subscriptions in India as of July 2026, four years after the Reserve Bank of India suspended the service. The central bank's framework required stronger payment security — tokenization and authentication improvements that prevent merchants from storing card data. Apple has completed the backend work and plans to add RuPay, India's domestic payment network, next. The move matters for premium subscribers who prefer cards over UPI Autopay, the country's dominant recurring-payment system.