A Swiss-made rival to Twint has officially launched.
PimPay hopes to win over small businesses by replacing percentage-based transaction fees with a flat monthly subscription between zero and 29 francs, depending on the number of transactions.
Merchants say it could make a real difference on low-value purchases, where card and Twint fees eat into already slim margins.
Like Twint, PimPay uses QR codes and also allows free money transfers between users within Switzerland.
They could have thought of a better name, but it’s nice to see some competition in this field.
I’ve just loaded it on my phone. They do ask for a lot of information about you. It also appears to be like a debit card. You have to load money onto it before it can be used. Loosing interest quite quickly with this one.
The problem with this dynamic is that vendors are incentivised to adopt it but customers won’t see any benefit over TWINT.
A much better option would be for Revolut or Wise to enter the space, offering similar favourable business terms to vendors and some sort of points/cashback to customers.
It’s Swiss, owned-managed by the banks themselves, and so readily offered in e-banking (no onboarding necessary). They have a 10-year head-start, during which the focus has been expansion rather than profitability.
Now comes a start-up by two individuals which promises a better deal for the merchant - no transaction fees, instead a subscription (so actually, fees,… ) - not sure of their competitive advantage, surely Twint can adopt this subscription approach overnight if they wanted?
Twint basic (just the QR code, the one we see in market stands) is 1.3% regardless of amount, not sure if what they propose is cheaper. And customers have to signup, transfer credit to this company to use, their ID document being sent to the UK for KYC and kept for 10 years. An easier solution : use cash perhaps with 0 transaction costs for everyone?
Not sure what problem it solves… I have NEVER seen a merchant refuse TWINT as too expensive. To be honest, most small businesses nowadays care less about the visa fees etc, instead their worry is the low volume, as people shop less in small shops.
