Apple halts payment platform launch after running into hurdles, says report

After landing in a regulatory grey zone, iPhone maker Apple has put a halt to its plan of introducing Unified Payments Interface (UPI)-based payments platform in India, a report by The Economic Times said.

Apple held discussions with few leading banks and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which manages the UPI platform to roll out Apple Pay in India, the report said citing two people with knowledge of the matter, however the iPhone maker faced technical and design related hurdles related to the flow of payment by UPI.

Apple wanted to include fingerprint as the mode of authentication on its payments platform to which the NPCI did not agree, a person familiar with the development said. UPI requires a person to enter a six or four digit number to make transactions.