SwatchPAY! Comes To Switzerland; Paytm Teams With Zomato For Food Delivery

Welcome to The Axis, your late look at payments news from around the world. Coverage includes the availability of SwatchPAY! in Switzerland. In addition, Paytm is working with Zomato on food delivery in India, and cafe+co International tapped Nayax to be its exclusive supplier of cashless payments for diners in multiple European countries.

After coming to China in the summer of last year, SwatchPAY! has become available to consumers in Switzerland, Swatch Group said in an announcement. The system taps into a near-field communication (NFC) chip under the dial of the watch. To make a payment, a consumer puts the watch adjacent to a payment terminal that takes contactless payments at the checkout terminal. The company noted that the watch doesn’t need batteries for payments, as the payment terminal provides energy needed for the transaction. Swatch Creative Director Carlo Giordanetti said in the announcement, “This latest advance, with the introduction of the fastest and simplest tokenization, makes it easier than ever to pay ‘forever’ — token up your Swatch, swipe it and you’re done.”

In other European payments news, cafe+co International tapped Nayax to be its exclusive supplier of cashless payments through a partnership that is said to span five years, Foodbev Media reported. Through the tie-up, VPOS Touch and Onyx card readers from Nayax are said to come to 25,000 café+co machines. As a result, diners in Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia and Austria will be able to tap into different cashless payment options. café+co International CEO Fritz Kaltenegger said, according to the report, “Upgrading our operations is a top priority and we have been searching for an all-inclusive solution that will help us improve our sales and operations for a long time.”

And Paytm, a payment service in India, unveiled an offering called Paytm Food Ordering with the help of Zomato, PCMag India reported. Through the offering, users will have the ability to use the Paytm app to place an order — and they don’t need to install Zomato. And Paytm noted that the service would encompass restaurants in 80 cities prior to the end of the month. Paytm Senior Vice President Renu Satti said in the announcement, “Our association with Zomato is a valuable addition to our platform in bringing the convenience of ordering food online through our app. A vast majority of our customers are from the tier 2 & tier 3 cities, with this new addition we are confident of driving the growth of online food ordering further.”