The Swiss payment application Twint gets further delayed due to the complexity of the system. The alternative to Apple Pay should have been available since the beginning of the year.
Twint, the Swiss payment application, is not ready for use yet. The company has set a new launching date in June, according to Twint Chairman Juerg Weber, who also is head of the payment solutions division at SIX Group.
Originally, the launch had been expected in January, before the company had to move it back to April and now to June.
IT System Links
Weber told a press conference that the project had proved very complex as the IT systems of seven banks had to be linked up and turned live on a given day. Some of the banks had not been able to make this happen in the short period available for the development of the system.
Twint now expects the system to be ready by mid-May. The first 10,000 payment terminals will be ready in Swiss shops in June. Customers will be able to pay with their mobile devices at 70,000 terminals by year-end, Weber told «AWP» newswire.
Switzerland's Answer to Apple Pay
Twint is Switzerland’s answer to Apple Pay, which has been active in Switzerland since July 2016. Twint also has local competition from a firm called Netcetera, which developed a digital wallet called SwissWallet in cooperation with Aduno credit card firm and Credit Suisse unit Swisscard.
Netcetera in January bought Nexperts, a company specialized in contactless payments.
