Poland’s new payment system, Blik, could be set to begin accepting payments from major platforms such as Netflix and Uber.
This is according to the CEO of the company behind the system, Polish Payment Standard (PPS), Dariusz Mazurkiewicz who anticipates possible global expansion.
He told Reuters: “Enlarging the scope of our activity with this kind of player … means that we are building a very interesting acceptance network, not only for Polish bank customers, it might be any other bank customer.”
Blik has been developed through a partnership of six Polish banks: Alior Bank, Bank Millennium, Bank Azchodni WBK, mBank, ING Bank and PKO Bank Polski.
Together they formed PPS and first went live back in 2015. Each bank has since embedded Blik into their respective mobile banking apps which enables users to pay online or in stores, withdraw money at ATMs and make transfers.
Mazurkiewicz continued: “The next step will be to invite banks from other countries and this is why we want to concentrate our efforts right now on our region, central Europe.”
He went on to reveal that the firm is aiming to sell the software its developed to other countries where it does not plan to launch under the Blik brand.
Talks are already underway to sell the system to companies in two other markets, Africa and Latin America.
In 2018 the platform saw a huge increase in usage – rising from 2 million transactions to 91 million by the end of the year.
It also secured a partnership with payments giant Mastercard and Mazurkiewicz told Reuters the firm expects to launch contactless payments from the second half of 2019.
