Smartphone payments: outperform cash even for small amounts

Post on: 19.02.2025

Smartphone and smartwatch payments continue to gain ground in Switzerland, and are growing steadily.

According to the latest edition of the Swiss Payment Monitor, conducted by the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), mobile devices accounted for 30.7% of transactions in November, with an increase of 3.9 percentage points compared to the May survey.

Payment methods compared

In the panorama of payment methods, debit cards are in second place with 24.4% (-1.8 points), followed by cash with 24.2% (-1.5 points).

On the other hand, when considering the total value of expenses, mobile devices remain in first place with 25.6% (+2.2 points), followed by debit cards (24.0%, +1.0 points) and credit cards (23.8%, +2.0 points).

In contrast, cash recorded a significant decline (-3.7 points), as did payment by invoice (-2.4 points).

Smartphone payments in physical stores

In physical stores, coins and banknotes are still the most widely used method (28.2%, -1.7 points), but they are followed by debit cards (28.0%, -2.1 points) and mobile devices (24.4%, +4.3 points), which continue to advance.

The importance of the transaction amount

The analysis also shows that the choice of payment method is influenced by the amount of the transaction. Cash is still prevalent for amounts under 20 francs, but its share decreases as the amount spent increases.

For amounts over 500 francs, a credit card is the preferred solution.

Smartphone payments even for small amounts

A significant finding from the latest survey concerns small amounts: for the first time, payments of less than 5 francs were made more frequently with a smartphone than in cash.

"This shows how the convenience and speed of digital payments are winning over even small transactions", explained Tobias Trütsch, economist at HSG, quoted in the press release.