Thanks to a deal with Credit Suisse, Apple Pay is gaining ground in the Swiss market for mobile payments. The tech giant is still mired in slow-moving negotiations with UBS.
Credit Suisse notched up a victory this week: its credit cards will will be enabled for Apple Pay as early as April, finews.com reported exclusively. The Swiss bank will also link its cards with Samsung Pay, the Android-based payment solution, but is still negotiating with Google over the terms.
The Cupertino, CA-based tech firm and UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, haven't yet managed to reach a similar agreement. The two have been discussing adopting Apple Pay for nearly three years now, but have failed to agree on terms.
Softening Stance
To be sure, UBS has softened its stance against Apple Pay in Switzerland. UBS digitization guru Andreas Kubli told finews.com in 2016 that «UBS doesn't see any necessity to offer Apple Pay domestically». On Friday, a spokesman for UBS told finews.com the bank is open to working with Apple Pay and other mobile payment providers – if the terms make sense.
Swiss banks' categorical rejection, until recently, of payment providers such as Samsung and Apple Pay is likely one of the reasons that Switzerland's anti-trust office began investigating. Bern alleges that Swiss banks conspired to freeze out rivals, in a probe which led to office searches last year including at Twint, a homegrown payment solution.
Whether Twint can survive alongside other, more international payment providers remains to be seen. For many Swiss consumers, Twint's direct link to banking accounts is useful, while Apple Pay requires a credit card. By contrast, Twint is clunky at points-of-sales in Switzerland, largely because Apple doesn't allow it to use so-called near-field communication, or NFC.
