Postfinance debit cards are not accepted in many places in Switzerland. This shall be changed now.
Postfinance is introducing a new payment card combined with Debit Mastercard.
“No Postcard”, “Postfinance not accepted” – many customers of the Bern-based financial service provider Postfinance are familiar with such signs. It is primarily smaller shops, market stalls, snack bars or accommodation in Switzerland that do not accept the yellow debit cards.
This is mainly due to the fact that the technical requirements of the Postcard system are not compatible with the card readers from providers such as Sumup. Even abroad, the 2.6 million Postfinance customers could not pay with their Postfinance debit cards.
Both customers and companies were often not happy about this. Postfinance reacted to this on Tuesday and announced that it was introducing a new Postfinance card combined with Debit Mastercard. With this you can pay at numerous additional sales locations as well as abroad, said the financial service provider. In addition, cash withdrawals abroad are possible at ATMs with the logo of the credit card provider Mastercard.
The exchange of the cards will be staggered between April 2022 and around spring 2023, it said. Customers received the new cards automatically and did not have to do anything else. The new card is included in the banking package for private individuals, while business customers will continue to pay an annual fee of 30 francs.
“Swiss merchants who do not accept the Postfinance card make purchases directly via Mastercard,” comments Ralf Beyeler from the online comparison service Moneyland.ch. This is the case, for example, with Sumup’s widely used payment devices. In this case, the fees that merchants have to pay for a single transaction are usually more expensive.
With the Smart banking package, the cost of cash withdrawals from third-party ATMs continued to cost 2 francs per withdrawal in Germany and 5 francs abroad, says Beyeler. For the purchases that are now possible abroad, Postfinance requires 1.5 percent of the payment amount. Many other Swiss banks, on the other hand, charged a fee of CHF 1.50 per debit card purchase abroad. Additional fees would often be added, such as 0.5 percent.
“Overall, when comparing debit cards, Postfinance is often cheaper for smaller purchases abroad of less than 100 francs and for larger amounts of 100 francs or more, it is often more expensive than other larger banks,” comments Beyeler.