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EFT Expertise
18. March 2026

2024 Retailer Survey on Cashless Payments in Switzerland: The Main Results!

von Dominique Bächler

In Switzerland the proportion of cashless payments has been steadily increasing for years. This is by no means only due to the growing significance of e-commerce, but is also apparent when looking at physical stores in isolation.

What makes paying easier and more convenient for consumers, means additional costs for retail companies: In addition to the expense of integrating the different payment methods, the transaction fees for electronic payments also play a key role here.

Despite this, there is often a lack of insight and knowledge in this area in particular when it comes to the composition of these costs and the options for optimising them. The 2024 retailer survey will help to create more transparency, knowledge and awareness of transaction fees for electronic payments.

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Summary

  • With the goal of creating more transparency and awareness of EFT fees, the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) conducted the third retailer survey on behalf of treibauf between March and June 2024.
  • Besides the main payment methods and main acquirers in Switzerland, the survey also examined the distribution of the different fee models and the differences in the amount of fees paid.
  • We also asked the Swiss retail companies what they see as the biggest challenges with cashless payments.

Aims of the 2024 retailer survey:
More transparency, more knowledge and more awareness

Thanks to the EHI Retail Institute, there are recurring studies for the German market, which have resulted in more transparency and know-how of the structures and costs of cashless payments in the German market. Switzerland had no such retailer survey at all until 2021.

Along with the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), treibauf decided to close this gap for Switzerland with the retailer survey on cashless payments.

Following retailer surveys in 2021 and 2022, the 2024 retailer survey is the third study on this topic. The objectives can be summarised as follows:

  • Create more transparency over the amount, structures and variance of transaction fees
  • Create more awareness of how companies can influence the amount of the fees
  • Reveal the current challenges that companies face due to electronic payments

Survey design, method and structure

87 Swiss companies took part in this retailer survey between March and June 2024. The majority of the surveyed companies were from the retail sector, where transaction fees play a major role due to the number of transactions. Numerous restaurant and hotel companies were also represented in the sample.

92% of the participating companies meet the definition of an SME (<250 employees). This means that large companies are still slightly overrepresented in the retailer survey compared to overall distribution in Switzerland.

However, most of the participating companies were micro-businesses with fewer than 10 employees, which does correspond to the Swiss business landscape.

What was examined?

In addition to the transaction fees themselves, the 2024 retailer survey also provides insights into the distribution of payment methods used in Switzerland and examines the respective significance of the different payment providers and acquirers from the perspective of Swiss retailers:

What were the main findings?

While the main findings of the retailer surveys in 2021 and 2022 were restricted to the significance of the main acquirers and the distribution and frequency of the different price models within the framework of transaction fees, the new 2024 retailer survey offers concrete insights for the first time into how the fee amounts differ within the various price models – and the impact of the amount of turnover on transaction fees.

The main payment methods in Switzerland

Before we discuss the significance of the different payment methods in Switzerland, we must first make a distinction between physical stores and online trade, because the distribution of payment methods varies widely in each case.

In physical stores…

  • payments by debit cards account for more than half (!) of total sales for 43% of retail companies.
  • a quite high or very high share of total sales comes from cash in 66% of retail companies and from credit cards in 56% of retail companies. 
  • TWINT (still) plays quite a minor role for 85% of retailers, even though the payment method is accepted by more than 80% of the companies.
The importance of different means of payment for stationary retail in Switzerland

In online trade…

  • TWINT accounts for more than half of online sales for 41% of the companies offering this payment method. This makes TWINT the most important payment method for online trade in Switzerland – ahead of the credit card!
  • Paypal accounts for a moderate to very high percentage of online sales for more than half of the online retailers accepting this payment method.
The importance of different means of payment for online retail in Switzerland

The main acquirers in Switzerland

Many of the surveyed Swiss companies have contracts with multiple acquirers.
An interesting development compared to the 2022 retailer survey was that the significance of the market leader Worldline has fallen slightly in favour of the competition in 2024. So there is a certain dynamic in the market! It must be noted at this point, however, that the 2024 sample differs from the 2022 sample. The different assessment could thus also be down to the different sample composition.

The importance of acquirers and payment service providers 2024

The distribution of fee models for electronic payments

With Fixed Rate, Blended Rates, Interchange+ and Interchange++, acquirers offer a variety of fee models. We have summarised what is behind these fee models – and what pros and cons they offer for the retail companies – in our own article for you.

  • The retailer survey also asked about the distribution of these different price models depending on payment method. The Fixed Rate model is the most widespread price model across all payment methods – often by a big margin.
  • Despite the advantage of more transparency, the Interchange+ and Interchange++ models are the least popular price models.
  • Between 10% and 20% of those surveyed (depending on payment method) did not even know which payment model they use. As we can assume that people taking part in the retailer survey are already extremely interested in the topic, these figures may even be much higher.
Distribution of pricing models depending on the means of payment

Fee models simply explained

Do you want to understand what fee models there are – and how they differ? We have explained everything you need to know about price models and fee components step by step in a magazine article for you 🙂

Read article now

The differences in fee rates

  • With the Fixed Rate model, the fixed fees are an average of CHF 0.27. In the case of the variable fee variant of the Fixed Rate model, they are an average of 1.31%.
  • Between 8% (Diners Club) and 31% (PostFinance) of those with a Fixed Rate model stated that they did not know their average feerate.
  • With the variable rates of the Fixed Rate model, the range of fees for American Express (between 0.77% and 3%) and Diners Club (between 0.77% and 3.05%) is particularly wide.
Fixed rate model: Fee rates (in %) per transaction by payment method
  • With the Blended Rate model the fixed fees are an average of CHF 0.17 and the variable fees 0.81% per transaction.
  • Between 38% (TWINT) and 64% (Visa) of those with a Blended Rate price model stated that they did not know their average fee rate.
Blended rates for three exemplary payment methods: The range of fee rates (CHF & %) per transaction by payment method
Blended rates for three exemplary payment methods: The range of fee rates (CHF & %) per transaction by payment method

The amount of fees depending on annual turnover

  • With both fixed fees and variable fees, a negative correlation between annual turnover and the transaction fee was recorded regardless of the price model. The higher the annual turnover, the lower the transaction fees on average. 
  • The retailer survey shows that when annual turnover is doubled, the fixed fee per transaction falls by about one centime and the variable transaction fee by around 0,07 percentage points.
  • What does this mean for you? If your turnover is growing, you should proactively renegotiate your transaction fees with your acquirer.
Variable fee rates (in %) according to turnover - independent of the price model

The biggest challenges for companies in the context of their cashless payments

  • More than half of the surveyed companies find it difficult or very difficult to access information about their transactions. Only 15% stated that the information is (very) easily accessible.
  • The majority of companies also rated the transparency and comprehensibility of the cost structures as poor. Only 3% of the surveyed companies rate the transparency of cost structures as good or very good.
  • Growing dependence on acquirers is cited as the biggest challenge, followed by increased EFT costs and a lack of cost transparency.
  • The first two topics were already cited as the biggest challenges in 2021 and 2022, and even more companies have supported this in the current survey. The low cost transparency has seen the biggest increase.

How do we see our role?

Why are we conducting this retailer survey? As experts in electronic payments, we would like to create transparency, build bridges and share EFT knowledge.  

Additionally, our software solutions help companies simplify the technical integration and operation of payment terminals or facilitate cross-channel reconciliation of electronic payments – thereby creating more independence and transparency.

How can I take part in the next retailer survey?

Are you interested in the topic? Then please do take part in the retailer survey too! 

The more companies that take part, the more transparency we can create over transaction fees in Switzerland. All participating companies are given exclusive first access to the results of the retailer survey. All data is of course completely anonymised. It is not possible to draw conclusions about individual companies – neither for us as the study organiser nor for other companies.

Just enter your email address here if you would like to participate in the next retailer survey. We’ll let you know by post as soon as the next retailer survey begins.

Many thanks in advance 🙂

More details from the 2024 retailer survey?

If you would like to learn more details about the results of the 2024 retailer survey, we would be happy to send you this information. Just write us a short email with a little information about your position and your company.

Obtain your results in detail
Dominique Bächler Article Author

Dominique is the CEO of treibauf AG and an expert in all the strategic challenges facing the EFT market. She is also able to draw on many years of experience as an analyst and strategist. She reports here regularly about the most significant trends and developments for the industry.

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