Tech giant Apple is negotiating with banks and authorities about launching its credit card, nicknamed “Apple Card”, in India. In this regard, Apple CEO Tim Cook met with Sashidhar Jagdishan, CEO and MD of HDFC Bank, during his recent trip to India in April.
According to reports, Apple is also in talks with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) about possibly launching ‘Apple Pay’ in India. It is unclear whether these negotiations are about enabling the credit card with NPCI’s Rupay platform or Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
It’s to be noted that only banks in India are permitted to issue credit cards. The benefit of launching a Rupay Credit Card is that it may also be linked to UPI. Customers can use UPI to make quick and easy payments by scanning QR codes with their mobile phones.
Nowadays, a large number of growing payments are made increasingly through mobile phones. Technology behemoths like Apple, Google, Amazon, and Samsung are aggressively expanding into the payments industry and have big intentions in the financial services space. These businesses have created payment applications and are hoping to make substantial progress in this area.
According to reports, Apple had also negotiated with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) about the card’s modalities. The regulator has instructed Apple to follow the standard procedure for co-branded credit cards. The tech giant will not be given any special consideration and will have to follow what others are following in the market.
The tech company is looking forward to the Apple Card in India, which would be a co-branded credit card partnering with HDFC Bank. Most likely, HDFC will give Apple Cards through their branches because, in India, only banks are permitted to issue credit cards.
Apple only collaborates with the biggest and most promising, which explains the negotiations with HDFC Bank. While creating alliances takes time and effort, banks and other businesses are also prepared to sweeten the contract terms to get Apple on board.
Reports say the conversations with Indian regulatory bodies and banks are still at their nascent stage. Therefore no conclusion has been made. The substance of the conversation, as well as when one can expect Apple to debut its credit card in India, were not revealed.
According to sources, Apple was considering major variations from India’s traditional co-branded credit card approach. It is still being determined if the company will make those concessions to launch the card in India.
In the United States, Apple presently offers a premium credit card in collaboration with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard. This card is built from titanium metal and is marketed as a high-end product.
In recent years, India has been focused on by Apple as iPhone sales are increasing at a quick pace. In FY23, Apple’s revenue in India reached roughly over Rs 50,000 crore or $6 billion, reflecting a 50% increase from Rs 33,500 crore (roughly $4 billion) in FY22.
Recently, during CEO Tim Cook’s visit to India in April, he opened two exclusive retail stores in Mumbai and Delhi. The first-ever brick-and-mortar retail outlets in India have marked a significant expansion of the US tech giant in the country, offering personalized services and experiences to customers. Apple is leveraging India’s electronics market growth and has been heavily focusing on manufacturing its products in the country.
Furthermore, the company has been relocating a substantial percentage of its iPhone manufacturing to India, which could account for nearly 25 percent of Apple’s entire mobile phone production in the next three to four years. Currently, Apple’s share in India’s overall smartphone market is around 4 percent, which is approximately two crore users.
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