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Comment by pilif | Hacker News Reader

Here in Switzerland, nearly every terminal supports contactless payments and Apple Pay has launched ~1 month ago.

Yet, next to nobody uses it because it's generally not available even though it has officially launched: Nearly all of the banks here are boycotting it and are pushing their own mobile payment startup [1] which also has much worse usability and was initially launched by the Swiss post, a company that still thinks that a 4 digit pin on their debit card is good enough.

1) https://www.twint.ch/en/

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> Swiss post, a company that still thinks that a 4 digit pin on their debit card is good enough

How many examples can you provide of a 4 digit card pin being brute forced? Is there any other scenario where a 4 digit pin has been compromised but a 6 digit pin would be safe?

4 digit codes are even easier to shoulder-surf than the 6 digit ones.

Same here in France, Apple Pay is launching against a user base that is very welcome to using NFC payment by debit card, banks that are trying to launch their own broken mobile payment solution as a paid option, and mobile operators that require special SIMs and apps that you must at best sideload if they're outright not requiring a device bought from the operator store with a custom firmware. Oh and there's Fivory, the startup that's obviously better because it's French (you know, like french cars, French people are overly infatuated with home-made stuff).

Hopefully Android Pay comes soon, so that most mobile phones get a ready to use native solution and all this crap gets swiped under the rug.

New Postcards ship with 6 digit PINs, so there's a little progress there. Twint feels like a step back though...

Verivox made a survey* about Swiss credit cards supporting Apple Pay, I've just ordered a 'Simply VISA Card'. Apple Pay is the reason that I'm actually paying for a credit card for the first time.

* = https://www.verivox.ch/nachrichten/welche-schweizer-kreditka...

At the moment Apple Pay have only two supporting banks: Swiss bankers and Corner. Now that Twint and Paymit are merging, they have most major banks and shops (Credit Suisse, Postfinance, Raiffeisen, UBS, ZKB, Migros, Coop, Swisscom) behind them, so I think Apple will struggle. Also, unlike other markets I think Switzerland has a very low usage of contactless payments. I rarely see anyone use them but maybe that will change with the rise of Twint (e.g putting little Twint signs next to every terminal).

Even at the current state Apple Pay is outperforming Twint and Paymit combined. In a few weeks Apple Pay will have surpassed the combined Twint and Paymit volume. In a year or two it will become obvious that Twint and Paymit are going nowhere and everybody will offer Apple Pay. At least one big issuer besides Cornèr already supports Apple Pay but hasn't rolled it out yet for political reasons.

Until then, vote with your wallet, cancel your credit card, get a CornèrCard or derivative like BonusCard. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter who your issuer is.

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