Yes, I remember. However, at the time of that discussion, and until at least as recently as March 2024, my experience was that my Google Pay / Google Wallet continued to work for contactless payments from my phone with my US-issued credit cards (several trips to India). This new experience (April 2024) is the first time that I am seeing that the cards simply disappear from the app and contactless payments are therefore not possible. I don't know if this is related to the Google Pay → Google Wallet switch in the US, or to the imminent roll-out of Google Wallet in India, or perhaps progressively stricter enforcement of whatever RBI directives may have already been in place for some time that restrict phone payments.

Any chance you can point to the details on these restrictions? I'm wondering... Why on earth would the RBI want to restrict non-Indian cards just for contactless payments? Contactless from a phone is, in my understanding, way more secure than other ways to use a credit card - and meanwhile simply tapping the card itself for a contactless payment seems to still be allowed (I did that once on my recent trip), and that's way more unsafe in principle (a stolen card can be used by someone without PIN or other authentication) and I could see them wanting to ban that. But from the phone? Hmm. It's even more perplexing to hear that Apple Pay works fine, so only Google phone payments are blocked? This is a head-scratcher.

Well, I guess the bottom line is to always be prepared for changes in these regulations, and carry back-up cards, cash, or be prepared to do a bank transfer, etc., when visiting India.