Apple Restores Card Payments for App Store and iCloud in India: What Changed

After nearly half a decade of workaround payments, Apple is finally letting Indian users swipe their cards again. If you’ve been stuck topping up your Apple Account balance through UPI just to renew iCloud storage, relief is on the way.

Here’s the quick breakdown:

Why Apple Pulled Cards in the First Place?

Back in 2021-22, the Reserve Bank of India rolled out strict tokenisation rules, barring merchants from storing customers’ actual card details and mandating that sensitive data be replaced with secure digital tokens. Recurring payment rules also required banks to notify customers at least 24 hours before automatic debits. Rather than immediately adapt, Apple simply dropped card support altogether, leaving Indian users to rely on UPI, net banking, or manually topping up their Apple Account balance — a frustrating detour that also caused failed subscription renewals for many.

Now, reports indicate Apple has finally built the backend infrastructure needed to comply with India’s tokenisation and data localisation requirements. The rollout is currently limited to a small group of testers, with a wider expansion expected over the coming months. Once complete, users will be able to add eligible cards directly through the “Payment & Shipping” section in iPhone or iPad settings.

Interestingly, this technical groundwork appears closely tied to Apple’s long-delayed ambition to launch Apple Pay in India — a service the company has been negotiating with banks and card networks to bring to the country since 2018. While no official Apple Pay timeline exists yet, restoring basic card payments is widely seen as a meaningful step in that direction.

For more background on Apple as a company, see its Wikipedia page.

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