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That the Twint joint venture announces the departure of its CEO Thierry Kneissler should not have surprised anyone. Kneissler was considered sick, you could not feel it anymore. The last time he appeared in a newspaper article in February. But the sentences do not come from him, but from the spokesperson of the press. Kneissler had not spoken to reporters. No more, could we say.
That Kneissler leaves Twint is understandable and logical. Twint was once his baby. Equipped by Postfinance with a lot of money, he was allowed to launch a start up for cell phone payments within the state company. Twint was modern and noisy. And he had a special approach: it should be as cheap as possible for commerce and thus represent an alternative to expensive credit and debit cards. Kneissler wanted to finance all this through customer data and advertising.
But that's when the turnaround, the big close cooperation. Because the SIX Group of banks also jumped on the train with mobile phone payment and tried to copy Twint, Kneissler was pushed into an alliance. The Post abandoned its own project and merged it with the banking application. In exchange for the control task of the Post, the banks accept the name "Twint". And Twint-Chef Kneissler. But from that moment, he had nothing more to say.
UBS executives took control
Behind the scenes, UBS people took control of the payment application. As a result, this has been expanded and integrated into the classic structures of the business of credit cards. First consequence: the costs have increased, more companies should participate in sales. Kneissler suddenly had many bosses with conflicting ideas. The only common denominator: Twint should prevent customers of Swiss banks from paying with Apple or Samsung payment applications. Reduit's thought instead of disturbance.
Now a man takes over from the outside. Markus Kilb has been working for the Italian-German UniCredit for some time, most recently in the field of small loans and credit cards. He certainly knows something about business and at the same time is not biased with sympathy for Twint's individual shareholders. That helps. In addition, with the Worldline payment professional, a new shareholder joins Twint, who should also know that the company is working. And who can also bring an international perspective.
The big question remains how long it will take for the new man to be stuck in the network of competing interests of Twint shareholders and partner banks. He must question what Twint should and can be. And what tasks Twint must leave to the competition. Otherwise, Twint remains the legendary Wollmilchsau, supposed to solve all the problems of payment of Swiss banks. And that's why it will never succeed.
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