iNDICA News Bureau-
Apple Inc has stopped accepting payments made using debit or credit cards issued in India, Business Standard newspaper reported May 6.
The move comes in the wake of the Reserve Bank of India, the country’s central bank, notifying new rules for auto-debit transactions on debit and credit cards issued in the country.
Under these rules, which came in force in September last year, all standing instructions on debit and credit cards for recurring payments such as subscriptions and bill payments stood canceled.
The rules also forbid payment aggregators from storing card details for easy recurring payments without explicit authorization by the cardholders.
For recurring payments of value up to Rs5,000 (approximately U.S. $65.75), customers were required to re-authenticate the standing instructions by going through a two-factor authentication process.
For recurring payments greater than this amount, customers have to be notified each time the payment is to be deducted and it can only go through if they consent by completing the two-factor authentication process. Automatic debit is disabled for all such payments.
Following this, Apple has stopped accepting debit and credit cards issued by banks in India for subscriptions and purchases as well as for ad campaigns on Apple Search. All such ad campaigns will be put on hold from June 1 this year.
In an email to users, Apple said, “Due to the Reserve Bank of India regulations, Apple Search Ads will soon no longer accept payments from credit cards issued by banks in India.”
It further said, “To avoid a lapse in serving ads to your customers, you can use a credit card issued by a bank outside of India. You can update your payment method by going to the billing tab in your account settings.”
The newspaper reported that many users had been complaining that they were unable to pay for Apple subscriptions for services like iCloud. They were unable to pay from Apple ID accounts, too. Last month, Apple had allowed users in India to make payments using Apple’s ID account through the United Payments Interface (UPI) and net banking.
The new rules seem to have also affected subscription payments made to foreign publications using credit cards issued in India.
