Paymit is at the heart of a strategic partnership between SIX and Swisscom. The app currently allows customers to send and receive money via their smartphones, and will also offer them the opportunity to make cashless payments in stores or online. The amount is booked in real time via the app and the registered account or credit card. In the future, Paymit will offer additional services such as loyalty point schemes or the creation of individualy tailoredl offers for customers. Companies and customers alike will benefit from a comprehensive payment and customer interaction solution, first special offers are scheduled for release as early as the beginning of 2016.
For SIX and the participating banks, such as UBS, Zürcher Kantonalbank, Banque Cantonale de Genève, Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, Luzerner Kantonalbank and Raiffeisen, the main benefit of the planned collaboration with Swisscom is that Paymit will spread more rapidly in the Swiss market. Swisscom will ensure that smaller banks too will be able to get connected to Paymit. “We believe in the Swiss financial centre and want to create a Swiss solution that can act as a counterweight to international players,” explains Swisscom CEO Urs Schaeppi. By quickly establishing the app in the market and providing a customer interaction solution, Paymit will become an even more attractive option for businesses and customers alike: “We are confident that the partnership between SIX and Swisscom will help establish Paymit as a mobile payment solution. The key objective for SIX is that all Paymit users and the participating banks benefit equally,” says SIX Group CEO Urs Rüegsegger.
Swisscom will press ahead with the development of supplementary services enhancing the shopping experience. For example, customers will be able to collect loyalty points for their purchases that they can then use for their next shopping trip, and retail companieswill be able to provide their customers with information on products and special offers. “Digitisation opens up numerous opportunities to improve the customers’ shopping experience. And thanks to Paymit, it will be even easier for businesses to take advantage of these new possibilities,” says Swisscom CEO Urs Schaeppi.
Swisscom has decided to phase out the payment function on its own innovation project, Tapit, by summer 2016. Despite the company’s best efforts, the number of active users and credit card providers on Tapit has remained well below expectations. The discontinuation of the Tapit payment function will free up resources in mobile payment, which Swisscom can invest in its partnership with SIX.
SIX operates Switzerland’s financial market infrastructure and offers comprehensive services in the areas of securities trading, clearing and settlement, as well as financial information and payment transactions on a global scale. The company is owned by its users (approximately 140 banks of various sizes and orientations) and, with its workforce of more than 4‚000 employees and presence in 25 countries, generated an operating income of CHF 1.8 billion and Group net profit of CHF 247.2 million in 2014.
Paymit (a combination of the words “payment” and “transmit”) is the first P2P payment system in Switzerland that is based on a uniform banking standard. Paymit can therefore be used by anyone living in Switzerland – regardless of which bank they are with. All that is needed to use the app is a Swiss mobile phone number as well as a bank account or credit/prepaid card, depending on the banking solution. Currently Paymit countsalmost 90,000 downloads. SIX opted to develop Paymit on an open infrastructure so that it can be used by all banks and configured to their requirements. In addition to UBS and Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB), which have been partners from the very beginning, Banque Cantonale de Genève (BCGE), Banque Cantonale Vaudoise (BCV), Luzerner Kantonalbank (LUKB) and Raiffeisen are also in the process of rolling out Paymit. Paymit is geared towards the future, and preparations are under way to expand it to businesses (point-of-sale, in-app and e-commerce).
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