The National Bank of Poland hasgiven the green light for a number of leading Polish banks to launch a jointmobile payment service called Blik that will allow customers to make paymentsin-store and online, withdraw cash from ATMs and send person-to-person transfersall from their phone.
Created using an open standarddeveloped by Polish Payment Standard (PSP), a company formed by leading Polishbanks including, Alior Bank, Bank Millennium, Bank Zachodni WBK, ING, mBank andPKO Bank Polski is based on technology originally developed by PKO for its Ikomobile payments service.
Commenting on the mobile paymentservice launch, a statement by the PSP to NFC World+ said, “The standard willbe open for other banks, acquirers and merchants. Letters of intent have beensigned with major players in the market — Eurobank, BNP Paribas Bank Polska,Credit Agricole, Getin Bank, Idea Bank, Dotpay, CashBill, IT Card etc. From acustomer’s point of view, it will not matter any longer what bank or whatmobile service provider an individual is using — the service will be availableto any customer who has a smartphone and has a bank account with aparticipating bank.”
With ApplePay yet to be availablein Europe, there is still room for mobile payment services to generate momentumand potentially slow ApplePay’s adoption outside of the United States. Whilethere is no guarantee that the Blik mobile payment system will be successful,by having a large number of leading banks involved and ensuring that merchantswill be willing to accept the service, the Blik mobile payment service has allthe components to be successful.
Overview by Tristan Hugo-Webb, Associate Director, International Advisory Service Mercator Advisory Group
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