TWINT

At the checkout, a user opens the app, scans the QR code on the payment terminal or on a sticker and confirms the payment. Online shops offer TWINT on computers and smartphones, and Express Checkout fills in the delivery address from the app through a TWINT ID. In the twelve months before the tenth anniversary of TWINT in September 2026, users made about 88 million public transport payments, and drivers who left a parking space early got more than CHF 15 million back.

Sending money between friends is free of charge and arrives in real time, whichever TWINT app the other person uses. Users can also request money from their contacts or split a restaurant bill among several people, once the issuer of their app has identified them. With Pay later, adults resident in Switzerland can settle purchases between CHF 10 and CHF 1,000 within 30 days, after a credit check by Swissbilling, a brand of CembraPay AG.

TWINT processed 901 million transactions in 2025, up from 773 million in 2024 and 4 million in 2017. About 77 percent of these transactions were purchases from merchants, and 23 percent were transfers between private individuals. Roughly 65 percent of the merchant payments took place in shops, while the other 35 percent were made online or at a distance.

About 81 percent of physical shops and more than 84 percent of online shops in Switzerland accept TWINT, and 99 percent of people over 16 know the app. TWINT passed the mark of 6 million users in August 2025, and its users can choose between the apps of several banks and TWINT Prepaid. The Brand Asset Valuator study of March 2025 named TWINT the strongest brand in Switzerland.

From 2027, TWINT direct debit replaces the LSV+ procedure, which will be discontinued on 30 September 2028. Users grant, manage and view their debit authorizations in the app for recurring bills such as health insurance premiums, streaming subscriptions and electricity. They can object to an executed debit within 30 days, and banks and qualified payment service providers connect merchants to the procedure.

Merchants can send customers a TWINT payment link by email, WhatsApp or newsletter, and they manage their payments in the TWINT Business Portal app. TWINT invoice, a digital solution for QR bills, is announced for the app. Since 2025, TWINT Prio Tickets has given users presale access to concerts of Live Nation Switzerland, and the program continues in 2026.

In October 2025, TWINT announced plans to open its platform to providers of regulated digital currencies, such as a stablecoin backed by Swiss francs or tokenized deposits. Developers of services for the new Swiss electronic identity, the E-ID, would also be able to use the TWINT infrastructure. TWINT opened talks with government, regulators and market participants, and users stay free to choose which of these services they use in the app.

In September 2026, TWINT and SIX joined the CHF stablecoin sandbox as new partners, and the sandbox entered a test phase that runs until the end of 2026. CHFD Infrastruktur AG, a subsidiary of Swiss Stablecoin AG, runs the platform with the stablecoin CHFD, which keeps a 1:1 peg to the Swiss franc. The nine partners, among them the banks UBS, PostFinance, Raiffeisen, Zürcher Kantonalbank and BCV as well as the crypto bank Sygnum, test settlement between institutions and programmable payments with limited participants and transaction limits. The pilot does not decide whether a Swiss franc stablecoin will be introduced.

TWINT wants Swiss payment providers to get full access to the technical interfaces of smartphones, and the company welcomed the preliminary investigation of the Swiss Competition Commission COMCO into how Apple handles NFC on its devices. Markus Kilb, the CEO of TWINT, calls the app a platform for daily digital life. Next to payments, users store loyalty cards such as Migros Cumulus and Coop Supercard in the app, and they can also buy digital vouchers there.

In 2019, TWINT was a founding member of the European Mobile Payment Systems Association EMPSA, which has its seat in Zurich. The association planned to let users pay with their home app in other member countries, and its members included national apps such as Swish from Sweden and the Norwegian app Vipps. Søren Mose, the chairman of the TWINT board of directors, became the first chairman of EMPSA.

TWINT is a payment app for Swiss francs that links a smartphone to a bank account or to a prepaid balance. A user pays by scanning a QR code and confirming the amount in the app, and the same app sends money to other TWINT users in real time.

TWINT AG belongs to the banks BCV, PostFinance, Raiffeisen, UBS and Zürcher Kantonalbank, to the financial infrastructure group SIX and to the payment company Worldline. Markus Kilb is the chief executive officer of TWINT, and Søren Mose chairs its board of directors.

A merchant that accepts TWINT with the QR code sticker pays 1.3 percent of each transaction, with no minimum fee and no fixed monthly costs. At a payment terminal, the payment service provider usually sets the fee, and the providers include myPOS, Nexi, Payrexx, PostFinance and Worldline.

Users enter their TWINT PIN or security code only in the TWINT app, because TWINT, its partners and the banks never ask for the security code. A newly registered user can send and receive money between TWINT users only after the issuer of the app has identified that person.

Users can send money and pay in Swiss online shops from anywhere, but payments at merchants work only in Swiss francs and only at businesses in Switzerland. TWINT Prepaid accepts a phone number from Germany, Austria or Liechtenstein when the user lives in that country, and the other app issuers set their own rules.