Apple stops accepting payments for services via Indian debit, credit cards
Apple appears to have ceased accepting credit, and debit card payments for deduction of payments for app subscriptions in India in line with government regulations after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) changed rules for recurring payments in October 2021.
The issue came to light after several users encountered payments decline while paying through Indian debit or credit cards.
Apple’s response over the issue
Apple addressed the issue in one of its support pages under “billing for Apple subscriptions and media products in India payments,” advising users on what to do if their card payment declined in India.
The company asserted, “To continue enjoying your subscriptions, you can add funds to your Apple ID balance.”
“Regulatory requirements in India apply to the processing of recurring transactions. If you hold an Indian debit or credit card and you have a subscription, these changes impact your transactions. Some transactions might be declined by banks and card issuers.”, Apple gave this statement on its Indian billing page.
“To continue enjoying your subscriptions, you can pay with your Apple ID balance. You can add to your Apple ID balance using App Store Codes, Net Banking, and UPI.”, the statement further said.
Several users have taken to social media platforms to complain about not being able to pay for subscriptions or apps with previously saved debit and credit cards on their Apple ID, over the past two months.
When did the issue start occurring?
The incident occurs after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced that merchants must tokenize saved card on file (CoF) data in order to continue accepting recurring payments for subscriptions.
After several extensions, the current deadline for Indian companies to enable card tokenization to save debit and credit card information on file is June 30, 2022.
The change affects recurring payments made in India, and several companies have already notified users about it.
Services like Netflix, which rely entirely on user subscriptions, have already made changes to comply with the new Indian regulations.
For instance, the latter rolled out support for UPI auto-pay for its Indian customers in September 2021.
The feature itself launched by the National Payments Council of India (NPCI) to replace the need for users to save their card data on platforms.
