Switzerland's Federal Council has opened a formal public consultation on proposed rules that would require greater transparency around the fees merchants pay each time a customer settles a purchase by card or through the homegrown mobile payments platform Twint. The move signals a meaningful shift in how Switzerland's government intends to regulate the often opaque world of cashless payment costs — and it arrives at a moment when digital transactions have become the dominant mode of commerce across the country.
The draft legislation proposes amendments to the Federal Act on Unfair Competition, an established legal framework that governs deceptive or misleading commercial practices. By anchoring the new card fee disclosure requirements within this statute, the Federal Council is treating insufficient fee transparency not merely as a commercial inconvenience but as a potentially unfair practice — one that disadvantages merchants who lack the tools to audit and understand the full cost structure of accepting cashless payments. It is a pointed choice of legislative vehicle, and one that telegraphs the government's intent to hold the payments industry to a higher standard of disclosure.
The Federal Council is not acting unilaterally. Parliament issued a mandate instructing the government to address the opacity surrounding interchange and related fees in the cashless payments ecosystem. That parliamentary directive reflects sustained frustration from Switzerland's retail and hospitality sectors, where merchants have long complained that the breakdown of fees levied by acquirers, card networks, and issuing banks is difficult to decipher — making it nearly impossible to compare providers, challenge billing errors, or make informed decisions about which payment methods to accept or promote at the point of sale.
Interchange fees — the charges paid by a merchant's bank to a customer's card-issuing bank each time a transaction is processed — sit at the heart of this complexity. These fees are typically bundled into broader merchant service charges and rarely disclosed in granular detail. The result is a structural information asymmetry that consistently favours payment networks and financial institutions over the businesses that rely on card infrastructure to serve their customers. Switzerland's proposed consultation seeks to redress that imbalance by compelling clearer itemisation of what merchants are actually paying and why.
The explicit inclusion of Twint in the scope of the proposed rules is particularly noteworthy. Twint has grown into Switzerland's most widely adopted domestic digital wallet, processing millions of transactions annually and increasingly rivalling international card schemes at the checkout. By bringing Twint within the same transparency perimeter as traditional card payments, Swiss authorities are signalling that the regulatory framework should be technology-neutral — applying consistent disclosure obligations regardless of whether a payment flows through a Visa or Mastercard network or through a nationally developed platform. This parity approach will be watched closely by fintech operators and card schemes alike.
Switzerland's initiative also arrives in a broader European regulatory context. The European Parliament has for years grappled with interchange fee regulation under the Interchange Fee Regulation framework, and the European Banking Authority continues to monitor compliance across member states. While Switzerland operates outside the European Union, its financial sector maintains deep integration with continental markets, and pressure from EU-aligned transparency norms undoubtedly informs the Federal Council's legislative agenda. Swiss merchants competing with European counterparts benefit from knowing that their regulatory environment is moving in a compatible direction.
For the payments industry, the consultation period represents an opportunity to shape the final contours of the rules. Acquirers, card networks, and platform operators will likely argue that some degree of fee bundling serves legitimate commercial purposes — simplifying billing and reflecting the complexity of multi-party transaction processing. The consultation process is designed to surface precisely these arguments and allow policymakers to calibrate disclosure requirements that are practical for industry participants while genuinely informative for merchants.
What This Means for Switzerland's Payments Landscape
If the proposed amendments are enacted, Swiss merchants will for the first time have a legal basis to demand clear, itemised disclosure of the fees they pay on cashless transactions — covering both international card schemes and domestic platforms such as Twint. That transparency could meaningfully alter negotiating dynamics between merchants and payment providers, enabling smaller retailers in particular to identify fee inefficiencies, benchmark costs against competitors, and exert informed pressure on their acquirers. For the broader payments ecosystem, it reinforces a global regulatory trend toward greater accountability in the infrastructure that underpins modern commerce. Switzerland, often perceived as a cautious regulator, is here taking a constructive and commercially significant step — one that places merchant interests firmly at the centre of its cashless payments policy.
Written by the editorial team — independent journalism powered by Codego Press.