Apple stops accepting debit, credit cards for subscriptions in India

CHENNAI: Apple has stopped accepting card payments for subscriptions and app purchases using Apple ID in India.

People in India will no longer be able to use their Indian credit or debit cards to buy apps from the App Store, get Apple subscriptions such as iCloud+ and Apple Music, or purchase any media content from Apple.

The company said on its support page detailing the update, "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."

The support page, that listed the available payment methods in each country it operates, shows that the company currently only supports net banking, UPI, and Apple ID balance as the three options to receive payments.

The change took place in April — on April 18, to be precise — as per another support page on the Apple site and comes as a result of the new auto-debit rules from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that came into force last year and are disrupting recurring online transactions.

Similarly, Netflix last year introduced UPI AutoPay support for recurring payments on its platform — as a resort to avoid issues due to the auto-debit rules.