Why paying by phone beats using a bank card

Dayan Pfammatter

20/3/2026

Translation: Veronica Bielawski

Cashless payments have long been the norm. More and more people are leaving their plastic cards at home and opting to pay by phone. It’s not just handy – it’s often safer too.

It’s 8:49 a.m. I’m standing in line at Coop on my way to work, holding my usual Emmi Caffè Latte Espresso. All four self-checkouts are occupied, while the two staffed tills aren’t manned.

One of the self-checkouts becomes available. I walk over, scan my item, tap the screen five times, hold my phone to the reader – and I’m on my merry way. It’s 8:50 a.m., and everyone else is still stuck at the tills.

If I had wanted to pay by card, I would’ve had to fish it out of my wallet first and maybe even enter my pin. But I haven’t carried my card on me for months. These days, I pay with my phone almost everywhere – and I’m far from the only one. A full 28 per cent of people surveyed in the latest Visa Payment Monitor (in German) cite the smartphone as their preferred means of payment. The University of St. Gallen and ZHAW’s Swiss Payment Monitor (in German) confirms this. With that, mobile phones have become Switzerland’s most popular payment method for the first time.

Even so, banknotes and coins aren’t going anywhere any time soon. Here in Switzerland, preserving cash is even set to be anchored in the Federal Constitution following the vote on 8 March. But this doesn’t change the fact that we live in a digitalised world. With tap-to-pay, e-banking and card terminals on Selecta vending machines, money flows digitally most of the time. If you’re still one of those people who whip out their physical card at the till, here are three reasons why you should stop.

Reason 1: it makes paying easier

Paying by phone works similarly to paying by card, except it’s even easier. All you need to do is set up your payment method of choice – Apple Pay or Google Wallet. Then you unlock your phone, hold it up to the reader, et voilà, you’ve paid.

On the iPhone, you press the power button twice to bring up your virtual card. On Android devices, you just need to unlock your phone to pay. On modern Google Pixel phones, this works with face unlock. All you have to do then is hold the device to the terminal to pay. There’s no PIN to type in, no app to open, you just pay.

Let’s be honest: chances are your card is wedged somewhere in your wallet between receipts and vouchers, unlike your phone, which you’ve pretty much always got in your hand anyway. On the tram, in the bathroom, while queueing at the till – so why not use it to pay while you’re at it?

Reason 2: it’s one less thing to worry about

If you pay with your phone, you can leave your plastic card at home altogether. That way, it can neither get lost nor be stolen.

At the moment, I do still carry my MagSafe wallet with me when I’m out. But I only use it as a phone stand and glorified ID holder. As soon as the e-ID is introduced, I’ll definitely switch to travelling with nothing but my phone and smartwatch.

Speaking of smartwatches: once your virtual card is set up, you can use it to pay on quite a few devices. If I ever lose my phone, I can still pay with my watch. My card, on the other hand? If it’s gone, it’s gone.

Even poor reception isn’t a problem; both Apple Pay and Google Wallet allow you to make payments completely offline. The required tokens are stored locally on the device. Which neatly brings us to my third argument.

Reason 3: it keeps your data safer

The biggest reason to leave your card at home is the security benefits.

If someone steals your card, they can use it to make small payments without a PIN until you notice and block it manually. By then, someone may already have done their weekly shop on your card. Your phone requires biometric verification or PIN-based unlocking for every payment.

You’re protected on the other side of the transaction too; with conventional card payments, you keep using the same card details again and again. At the Migros or Coop checkout, that’s hardly an issue. In non-secure systems or during online payments, however, those details can be intercepted and misused.

That can’t happen when you pay with your phone. For every payment, an encrypted token and a dynamic one-time security code are generated, known as a cryptogram. Your real card number is never transmitted. Even if someone were to intercept this data, it’s worthless after that one payment.

A handful of these encrypted tokens are also generated in advance and stored locally, so you can still make the odd payment without an internet connection. On Apple devices, they’re generated locally either way.

The data on your card is static and can, in certain situations, be read contactlessly. Your phone, by contrast, only gives up that information once you’ve given the all clear.

While Google Wallet processes transaction data in the Google Payments profile (and therefore on Google’s servers), the payment token on the iPhone is stored locally and separately from the rest of the system in Secure Element. Apple says it doesn’t store transaction data that identifies you personally, but anonymised metadata is still collected for improvements.

So, ready to pay with your phone?

Paying by phone is easier, more convenient and safer than paying with a plastic card. You can access your payment method from anywhere (including online shops, wink wink), and you carry your phone with you anyway. So next time you leave the house, think of me and leave your card behind. Or, if not, let me know in the comments why you prefer to pay the old-fashioned way.

Dayan Pfammatter

Freelance Editor

pf.dayan@gmail.com

I've been fascinated by all things keys, displays and speakers for basically as long as I can remember. As a journalist specialising in technology and society, I strive to create order in the jungle of tech jargon and confusing spec sheets.

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