iPhone-maker In India, Apple has stopped accepting credit and debit card payments for Apple ID memberships and app purchases. This means that customers of Apple devices who have subscriptions on their iPhones or iPads will need to adjust their payment methods in order for recurring payments to continue.
These changes to Apple’s payment methods were announced last month, but they are still being rolled out to customers across the country. The Reserve Bank of India gave two guidelines, one on auto-debit mandates and the other on card tokenization, that are at the heart of Apple’s adjustments.
The auto-debit directives, which took effect on October 1, 2021, required user authentication for any instructions for recurring online payments made with credit or debit cards, with previous standing instructions being affected.
Separately, any corporation storing card details of consumers on its websites or applications will have to erase those details beginning July 1. If online players and merchants are unable to apply the modifications at their backend, an estimated 5 million clients who have stored their card credentials for online transactions on multiple platforms could be impacted.
On April 18 of this year, via update on its support page, Apple said:
“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”.
“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,” it added.
Apple did not reply to requests for comment for this story via email. Apple’s iPhones accounted for 3.3 percent of smartphone shipments during the January-March quarter, according to Counterpoint data.
Most credit and debit cards, as well as Net Banking, RuPay, and UPI, can be used to fund Apple ID wallets. Apple recently notified its developers of the RBI regulations, stating that they will no longer be able to use their cards to pay for some of their recurring ad campaigns on the App Store.
“Due to Reserve Bank of India rules, Apple Search Ads will soon no longer accept payments from credit cards issued by banks in India”, Apple wrote in an e-mail to developers. “All campaigns using a credit card provided by an Indian bank would be put on hold beginning June 1”.
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