How to Accept Card Payments in Switzerland

Merchants have to pay high fees when customers use cards to pay. This affects all businesses which accept card payments, from supermarkets and grocery stores to specialized shops, farm stalls, fashion stores and boutiques, bakeries, butcheries, kiosks, restaurants, hotels, hair salons, and other service providers.

In this guide, moneyland.ch answers the most important questions about merchant fees for physical debit card payments. Fees for online card payments are not covered by this guide.

What are the differences between debit cards and credit cards?

You as a merchant pay much lower fees for accepting debit card payments than for credit card payments.

A debit card is linked directly to your bank account. Each payment made using a debit card is automatically charged to the linked bank account.

A credit card is not linked to a bank account. Instead, purchases are made on credit, with the card issuer advancing the money. Normally, credit card users are billed by the card issuer on a monthly basis. The card user then repays the money advanced by the issuer.

Which payment cards are used in Switzerland?

Until recently, only two debit cards were widely offered in Switzerland: The Maestro card was offered by Swiss banks, while the post office offered the Postfinance debit card.

Now things have changed. Most Swiss banks have phased out the Maestro card and transitioned to the Debit Mastercard and Visa Debit cards. You can find an overview of which debit cards are used by which Swiss banks here.

The most widely used credit card type in Switzerland is the Mastercard, followed by Visa. Use of American Express cards is not as widespread.

How popular are debit cards in Switzerland?

Swiss consumers frequently use debit cards for payments. Typically, Swiss consumers use debit cards to make around 130 million purchases worth more than 6 billion francs every month. Credit cards are not used as much: Around 40 million purchases valued at a total of 3 billion francs are charged to Swiss credit cards every month.

How can I accept card payments as a merchant?

Your business must be equipped with a point-of-sale (POS) terminal. Many service providers offer these devices as part of service packages with monthly flat fees. You also need to open an account with a merchant acquirer, which manages the financial transactions. You may need additional contracts, depending on which payment types you want to accept. These may be necessary if, for example, you want your customers to be able to pay with Postfinance debit cards or American Express cards.

Merchant acquirers are increasingly offering packages for between 50 and 500 francs that include both a POS terminal and a payment-processing subscription, with no basic monthly fees.

Which merchant acquirers are there in Switzerland?

In Switzerland, the choice of acquirers is very limited. Worldline – formerly SIX Payment Services and PAYONE – dominates the Swiss market. Another merchant acquirer is Nexi (formerly known as Nets, Concardis, and CCV). Postfinance also offers a Combo Payment Methods card payment processing service in collaboration with Worldline.

Sumup is another acquirer service which provides an alternative – particularly for small businesses. The company sells affordable POS terminals, with simpler models costing less than 100 francs. But Sumup’s fees for processing transactions are relatively high. You pay a fee equal to 1.5 percent of each debit card transaction, and 2.5 percent for credit card transactions. 

How much does accepting Twint payments cost?

Twint is a mobile wallet which lets consumers pay using their phones. Users can link the Twint app to their bank accounts in order to use their phones like debit cards. So from a consumer perspective, the app is comparable to a debit card.

For you as a merchant, accepting Twint payments is relatively expensive, at 1.3 percent of the transaction size. It is popular among operators of farm stalls, self-service booths and market stalls. The reason for this is that accepting Twint payments does not require a POS terminal. You simply need to provide customers with a QR code which they can scan with their phones in order to pay. This cuts out the cost of POS terminal subscriptions.

Some acquirers like Worldline and Nexi also give you the option of accepting Twint using POS terminals. In this case, the acquirer’s fee applies instead. Worldline charges a fee equal to 1.7 percent of payments made with Twint. Nexi charges 1.35 percent. However, it may be possible to negotiate lower fees in some cases.

What do debit card payments cost you as a merchant?

Payments with the Maestro card (via Worldline) and Postfinance Card have fixed per-transaction prices of 28 and 23 centimes respectively. Lower fees apply when your annual transactions surpass certain thresholds. The new debit cards from Mastercard and Visa have completely different fee structures. When you accept these newer debit cards, you are charged a fixed fee plus a transaction-based fee. Here you can find the fees for accepting Swiss debit cards as a Swiss merchant.

Table 1: Fees for debit-based payments

Table 2: How much does accepting a debit card payment cost?

A look at the table above shows that fees can vary depending on the size of the purchase being made. For a bakery at which the typical customer spends just a few francs, Sumup is a relatively affordable option. A boutique where the average purchase value is higher pays the least fees when customers pay with the Postfinance or Maestro debit cards.

How much does accepting credit cards cost?

Until recently, merchant fees could be equal to more than 3 percent of the credit card payment. But there are now much cheaper acquirers. Comparing the fees charged by different acquirers is worth it.

The acceptance fees for Mastercard and Visa credit cards published by Swiss acquirers are shown in Table 3. These fees only apply to payments at Swiss merchants made with personal credit cards issued in Switzerland. Acquirers may charge much higher fees when you accept business credit cards and foreign credit cards.

Can you negotiate fees?

There may be situations in which you can negotiate lower fees with the acquirer. But because the number of merchant acquirers in Switzerland is constantly shrinking, opportunities for bargaining better deals are few. That does not mean you should not try to negotiate. In the case of credit card payments in particular, acquirers may be willing to offer you better conditions. Still, it is better not to expect too much in this regard.

Which fee models are there?

Some acquirers use two different fee schedules:

• Fixed flat fee which includes interchange fees and other merchant fees.
• Dynamic fees with variable interchange fees and other merchant fees.

The advantage of a fixed fee model is that you can calculate exactly how much you will be charged for a card payment.

With the dynamic fee model, you pay a different fee depending on which card is used. You may pay additional fees depending on the country which the car was issued in. The type of card used also plays a role in determining the effective fee charged. These factors make the dynamic merchant fee model somewhat complex.

Are there alternatives for small dealers?

There are currently very few acquirers available to Swiss merchants – namely Worldine, Nexi, and Sumup. If you are a small business, you should take a closer look at Sumup. You can buy the POS terminal cheaply without an expensive, ongoing contract. But Sumup charges relatively high merchant fees when you accept payments.

Worldline has an offer called Link/2500+ which is aimed at smaller businesses and is similar to the Sumup offer. A point of sale terminal costs around 200 francs. You do not pay any fixed ongoing fees, but pay a fee equal to 1.7 percent of each payment you accept (for Swiss personal credit cards and debit cards). There is a minimum fee of 10 centimes per transaction. An advantage over Sumup is that you have the option of accepting Swiss payment methods like Twint, Postfinance debit cards, Reka money, and Lunch Checks. But there are also pitfalls: For certain kinds of transactions, Worldline charges 2.9 percent instead of 1.7 percent.

Nexi has similar offers. Postfinance offers a similar subscription with its Combo Payment Methods, but you have to get POS terminals separately yourself.

Can I choose which cards my business will accept?

Generally, you can choose which cards customers can use when paying for purchases. The requirement is that your acquirer offers the payment method you want to accept.

You can, for example, choose not to accept the new Mastercard and Visa debit cards. But you should consider that many consumers will no longer receive Maestro debit cards from their banks. That means they will have to pay in cash or using another payment solution which you accept.

If the average purchase made by your customers is relatively large, the new debit cards will be particularly expensive compared to the cards which are being phased out. But even with their higher fees, the new debit cards are still cheaper to accept than credit cards or Twint, for example.

Can customers used their phones to pay?

Yes. You can accept payments from Apple Pay, Google Pay, and other mobile payment solutions as long as your POS terminal has a near-field communication (NFC) function. That is the case with terminals from Worldline, Nexi, and Sumup. Just note that many consumers can only link their mobile wallet to credit cards, but not debit cards. In most cases that means higher merchant fees.

You can accept Twint payments if you either use Wordline or Nexi and include Twint as an acceptable payment method in your subscription, or you get a subscription directly from Twint.

Are there cheaper alternatives to accepting card payments?

Bank transfers are the most affordable alternative to card payments, for both small and large businesses. These are generally free of charge for customers, and the fees for you as a merchant are very small, or may even be included in business account fees. But setting up bank transfers to make payments requires more effort than using payment cards, and it can take several days for a transfer to be completed.

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