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Apple Pay Coming Soon to Switzerland's Largest Bank UBS
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I live in Switzerland, I have a bank account at UBS, I enjoy to pay without cash and I am a huge Apple fan. Seems like all the ingredients to enjoy this news are here, right? Wrong.
The vast majority of Europeans doesn't use credit cards like Americans. We use credit cards to pay for flight tickets or car rental, or expensive purchases we want to settle in multiple monthly payments (like a TV), or to buy stuff online internationally (although now most Swiss online shops accept TWINT or payment by invoice)...
The point is, we don't use credit cards in a daily basis to pay everything, from breakfast to the high-end new computers. And since Apple Pay only accepts credit cards our usage of it will be pretty limited. At least it's my case and all the people I know.
For regular stuff I buy online and for contactless payments in shops, I prefer TWINT. It's a Swiss service/app available trough the vast majority of Swiss banks that allows you to pay with your phone (proximity beacons or QR code scanning) and to send and receive money to/from friends. It has one advantage over Apple Pay: you can associate it directly to the bank account so you don't have to use the credit card.
I will keep using TWINT until Apple Pay accepts association to the bank account directly.
The vast majority of Europeans doesn't use credit cards like Americans. We use credit cards to pay for flight tickets or car rental, or expensive purchases we want to settle in multiple monthly payments (like a TV), or to buy stuff online internationally (although now most Swiss online shops accept TWINT or payment by invoice)...
The point is, we don't use credit cards in a daily basis to pay everything, from breakfast to the high-end new computers. And since Apple Pay only accepts credit cards our usage of it will be pretty limited. At least it's my case and all the people I know.
For regular stuff I buy online and for contactless payments in shops, I prefer TWINT. It's a Swiss service/app available trough the vast majority of Swiss banks that allows you to pay with your phone (proximity beacons or QR code scanning) and to send and receive money to/from friends. It has one advantage over Apple Pay: you can associate it directly to the bank account so you don't have to use the credit card.
I will keep using TWINT until Apple Pay accepts association to the bank account directly.
The way you describe sounds prudent, but maybe a little old fashioned, i.e. many of us in the states pay off cards monthly, but put everything possible on them, to get card rewards, especially travel miles. As long as balances are paid monthly, the rewards are free money.
This has very little to do with technology, more protecting the bank’s own interests, that is why. UBS is huge, so they must have taken a long while negotiating the best Apple Pay conditions for themselves.
The stronger the banking community, the more they can resist by exerting their influence and put up roadblocks.
You may not, many do. I never use a debit card if the place accepts a creditcard. I want the free insurance, and I've never not paid the bill at the end of the month - so no fees.
I have the free Coop card (which moved to Swisscard - Cashback Master Card recently). No charges. works with Apple Pay. I use it in every shop here as they all have contactless readers. The statement is automatically cleared in full from my bank account.
Things took a while to take off here in CH as many banks got together and pushed TWINT and for a while were fighting with PAYMIT. I think Apple Pay will continue to make inroads as some big names (Digitec/Galaxus - owned by Migros) is in a public spat with TWINT and has refused to accept payments via them.
That is because EU /UK credit cards dont get as much rewards as the US credit card system. Hence I asked in the previous question, whether UK or EU citizen are eager to sign up for Apple Card if it doesn't have all the perks in the US Apple Card.
I was waiting for Apple Pay in CH. Meanwhile I got Revolut and can’t imagine anything better. No fees for online purchases and great Forex rates.
i don’t know if it’s country specific, but in my country (Greece) Apple Pay works with debit cards as well.
I mean most of the time both are supported for Apple Pay.
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Well tell UBS to support debit cards too it's not Apple's fault that UBS only offers it for credit cards (is that even the case?) Also, a Visa or MasteraCard logo doesn't imply that it's a credit card, there are debit cards that use the Visa/MC network as well
I happened to make purchases in a debit-only store just yesterday - but these not accepting credit cards are becoming increasingly rare in Switzerland, so I've mostly become cashless here. I also pay my credit card bills in full at the end of each month.
Me, I'm also paying for everything with my credit card, if possible. That said, I do agree that's still uncommon in Switzerland and/or many other European countries, as most people use debit cards or cash for everyday transactions.
Or the other way around:
Apple Pay will boost use of credit cards (or prepaid cards in the case of UBS).
That's because our notes are such pretty colours! However, all the adverts and recommendations that we acoid handling cash in this period may make some people move permanently to contactless. I think, in Europe, we're so used to having contactless that the advantages of Apple Pay aren't so great. I use it, as I like to see the statement on the phone and it saves me taking my wallet out, but before we had Apple Pay I used contactless which worked just as well.