Alliance against Apple Pay breaks up
With Swisscard, the first major credit card provider enables payment with Apple Pay.
Swisscard AECS, the leading issuer of American Express, Mastercard and Visa credit cards in Switzerland, will offer customers Apple Pay from late fall 2016. Swisscard is owned by Credit Suisse and American Express. Thus, one of the big five Swiss banks is now also approaching the Apple Pay boat. Until now, these banks have not wanted to know about the competitor to their own payment solution Twint, which will be launched on the market in spring 2017.
So far, only relatively small credit card issuers have participated in Apple Pay: Cornèr Bank and Swiss Bankers, for example. 80 percent of the 6.2 million Swiss credit cards originate from Apple Pay. Finance and economy from UBS, Postfinance, Viseca and Swisscard. Swisscard has a market share of around 25 percent. The company Achieves the highest card turnover of all credit card issuers.
For now, Swisscard plans to enable Apple Pay on its American Express Charge cards, Swiss Miles&More credit cards and neutral Mastercard credit cards. At a later date, Swisscard will decide together with its partners whether and when other co-branded cards should also be upgraded for Apple Pay, based on experience and acceptance of Apple Pay, according to the statement. It sees mobile payments as a competitor to cash, but not to other payment formats such as Twint or Contactless, the company writes. (hae)
