The Swiss Competition Commission (Comco) announced an investigation into whether various Swiss financial firms agreed to boycott Apple Pay and Samsung Pay in order to protect rival mobile payments app, TWINT.
TWINT is a joint venture between: SIX; Worldline; and the six largest Swiss banks. Comco suspects that five financial firms—Aduno, Credit Suisse, PostFinance, Swisscard, and UBS—refused to allow their credit cards to be used with the rival mobile payments apps. Comco has conducted inspections at the offices of those companies, as well as at TWINT, although it is not under investigation.
Credit Suisse has cast doubt on the allegations, indicating that it already allows its customers access to Apple Pay and Samsung Pay via its subsidiary, Swisscard. UBS indicated that it had tried to reach an agreement with Apple Pay in 2016 without success. TWINT indicated that it has made its own antitrust complaint against Apple, which it alleges prevents the trouble-free use of TWINT on IOS devices.
