Apple continues to face roadblocks in India, as it faces falling sales, increased import taxes, laws barring the opening ofApple Stores, and even a threatened ban against iPhones. Now comes a report saying Apple’s planned rollout of Apple Pay in the country is on hold due to a new law.
Economic Times say its sources tell them that Apple has put an Apple Pay rollout on hold.
Apple put the brakes on introducing Apple Pay in the country despite holding discussions with a few leading banks and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which manages the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) platform, said two people with knowledge of the matter.
The main worry for Apple is the Reserve Bank of India’s recent data localisation rule […] that requires companies to store all their payments data only within India.
Nearly a year ago, Apple exec Eddy Cue announced that Apple Pay was on its way to India. At that time, he wouldn’t announce a target date until thinks were 100% certain.
In addition to India’s localization rule, there is also an issue with how Apple Pay authenticates payments, via either Touch ID or Face ID. The NCPI doesn’t allow that, as it requires users to enter a six or four-digit number to authenticate payments, and does not allow biometrics to be collected by a device for authentication.
Apple isn’t the only company facing payments roadblocks in India, as MasterCard, Visa, Google, Amazon, PayPal and others also have to deal with this issue.
(Via 9to5Mac)
