It is easier than a credit card because you use the phone camera and a QR code to enter the details, rather than typing in a CC number.

You can use a credit card as the backing payment for TWINT, so bonus points and stuff like that still apply, and you get to check the CC statement and challenge any payments etc.

I'm normally super skeptical about this sort of idea, but TWINT does seem to work and solve some actual problems.

So it's actually just a Swiss copy of WeChat Pay? I like it when banks get "creative"...

I found it really slow to use at the tills, but I only used it when it first came out, maybe the whole paying and loading has got easier.

But as I can add my contactless postcard to my postfinance app, I don't see the point of it beyond moving money to friends (which you can also do in PF app)

I’ve been using it for Coop points this month. Not sure I’ll use it regularly. It is slow.

There is a credit suisse version too - that’s where our account is.

It’s less costly because it essentially acts as a front-end for your standard e-banking payments interface. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that simple - but there’s a lot of overlap there.

There are, if I recall correctly, 9 Swiss banks in the consortium with Twint apps.

And that twunt reference is great. I knew there was something off about the name...

The credit cards, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Union Pay charge merchants around 3 to 7 % of the transaction as fees. I believe Twint is something less than 0.5%.

So, it's a choice of paying the US banking system a 3 to 7% tax on every transaction, or not. Fifty years ago, the banks added commensurate value, however, those days are long gone.

I just don't see the need for the peer to peer aspect.. The examples given of splitting a lunch bill or buying drinks, general small stuff, I just don't do it.. If i'm out with friends and split lunch - we tell the waiter to give us a bill each, or sometimes I buy, sometimes they buy.. etc. I just can't vision screwing around on the phone for a few minutes to split the bill.

That's the nature of these things - if you don't see the need, you won't use it.

But being able to make payments to individuals easily electronically is definitely a gap in the current setup which is becoming more and more obvious as people reduce their use of cash. TWINT seems to have a reasonable solution, if you need it.

Of course, it's also great marketing to use peers, and for people who expect everything to be connected!

Yes never used it for those kinds of things, but have for paying friends for tickets bought or ski trip booked etc.. much more one-off type things where it is a bit quicker than logging into full ebanking

Clearly a sign of the times. I can much more imagine going out without my phone than without cash or a card. Where do you put your phone when running anyway?

Is that something you need to do on a regular basis? The only time I ever lend or borrow money is when or with a group of mates and someone's short of readies to buy their round.


Well you could always use your phone to display your card's code anyway.

I don't get it. It's it really so difficult to carry a bit of cash and a card?

a) to listen to music
b) to track my run on a GPS tracker

(Really? I am not exactly a hipster, but you don't see runners without phone these days...)

I think that's quite sad, actually.

Call me old fashioned but neither my handy nor my bank-accounts know the other one exists.

I'm with you on this.

I will look at Twunt though for "at my PC" use, just to pay less for concert tickets...

Why? I am not exactly the person putting selfies on instagram, but I find the run tracking apps pretty fun. They show me if I am progressing or not. And I don't think that listening to music while working out is sad either...

The tracking apps are great. It's uplifting to realize you did a lot more km than you thought you did
The constant music consumption I don't really understand. There are so many sounds out in nature I enjoy hearing. And sometimes when you get really, really lucky there are even moments of no sounds at all!

Actually around 0.5% they claim for the actual card intercharge. cash handling charges may well be higher.


https://www.mastercard.com/us/wce/PDF/Switzerland.pdf

I am running along lake Zurich, a fairly populated area for Swiss standards. While I had a Walkman already as a teenager did I never use headphones a lot till pretty recently. I would say there is a correlation between me using my headphones and the popularity of cheap and noisy bluetooth speakers used by groups of people sitting along the shore just next to my running track.

Just the sort of place where I wouldn't want to be moving at speed, oblivious to the sounds around me. Last night a jogger with his ears firmly clogged with white earbuds darted straight in front of my bike, without looking and certainly without hearing.

I'd rather keep as many of my senses as possible open when out jogging, or walking around city streets, for that matter.

Also...

... shouldn't you be at work? And how do you jog, listen to music, and type on your phone, all at the same time, in a fairly populated area?

Are you correcting his English?