In global markets like the US, Apple collects roughly 0.15% on credit card transactions from issuing banks. In India, however, the digital payments landscape is overwhelmingly dominated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which processes over 14 billion transactions monthly with zero or near-zero Merchant Discount Rate (MDR).

When Apple Pay launches with Axis Bank, cardholders gain sleek tap-to-pay convenience on iPhones and Apple Watches via NFC terminals and in-app Safari checkouts. However, tier-1 issuers like HDFC, SBI, and ICICI are hesitant because sharing 0.15% of interchange in an already fee-compressed Indian ecosystem directly erodes their interchange profitability—especially when merchants continually steer customers toward QR-code UPI transactions.