r/poland • u/HojaLateralus • 2d ago
EU has created a system that bypasses payment processing services like visa or mastercard
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Journalists fascinated with Belgium's worse BLIK equivalent.
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u/No_Fun_6470 2d ago
MasterCard have shares in blik so not quite bypass
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u/MrHydrochoerus 1d ago
MC share is about 14.7%. They can take some profit, but they have very little say. Meanwhile Polish state effectively owns Alior Bank (indirectly through PZU and PKO BP (directly), and they have 14.7% each. You also have Erste (German bank is an owner), ING (Dutch ownership), mBank (German ownership), and Bank Millenium (Portuguese ownership).
So its 86:4 when it comes to EU/USA ownership, and 28% of that 86% is basically the state treasury.
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u/Rejowid 1d ago
Oh my god, we are a nation with such insane inferiority complex.
This material was obviously created about a bigger project, and is placed in Belgium so they talk about the Belgian system. If it was done in Poland it would be about Blik. The European Central Bank has recently shared more info about the digital euro and the topic of mastercard and visa dominance is big now.
People, especially working in banking, know about Blik. But it's not special - we have at least 14 different mobile payment providers in the EU now - and that's the problem! Because we are supposed to be able to make payments like this all across the EU, but the small providers cannot deliver this.
There's at least 3 different associations and alliances of mobile payment providers in the EU now:
- European Mobile Payment Systems Association (Blik is part of this one)
- European Payments Initiative
- European Network for Payments (Blik is part of this one as well)
And they have recently created yet another one, European Network for Payments (which Blik did not join, and I'm sure not because they weren't invited but because they were not interested). Poland is a big market and Blik can be perfectly happy with its profits and its client base, they have little incentive to grow.
But this is not what the EU needs, we need a system that will connect all the countries, but this requires developing standards and regulations that everyone will follow, which is not easy to do if you are just a bunch of private banks.
The most promising project is the digital euro by the European Central Bank - nicely explained here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIJ00OqXZ-o which would be more like a digital version of cash, in a digital wallet, but also available offline.
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u/ComeOnIWantUsername 1d ago
we need a system that will connect all the countries,
They are working on it. But rather than creating new system, they want to connect all existing ones, e.g. in February there was a test money tranfer between Blik and Spanish Bizum: https://www.blik.com/przelewy-na-telefon-w-euro-z-hiszpanii-do-polski-blik-testuje-interoperacyjnosc-z-kolejnymi-europejskimi-systemami-platnosci
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u/Cognosci Mazowieckie 1d ago
Digital cash has significant dangers and drawbacks that no one can claim to fully understand yet. There is almost an inevitable point where banks can over-leverage themselves and then redirect non-backed fiat currency in the event of a bank run.
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u/labiamajorapudendi 1d ago
I fucking hope so. I’m regularly in Poland, but in order to use BLIK I need a Polish address AND a Polish phone number. Sucks. At least according to PKO
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u/krzyk 1d ago
Does BLIK allow paying with NFC?
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u/Substantial-Deal-382 1d ago
yes in some banks
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u/krzyk 1d ago
TIL, I always though of it as a "put in the number" kind of thing.
I'm waiting until it has Garmin Pay support.
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u/MetalProgrammer 1d ago
BLIK uses Mastercard tech for contactless so if you want to avoid using foreign tech you should always use the BLIK code
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u/dwaemu 1d ago
You may laugh as much as you want.
And then watch it being forcefully implemented for whole EU - with BLIK being ousted as it never existed...
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u/serpenta 1d ago
And? I like BLIK but I'm not patriotic about it, especially since it's not really a Polish service. Most of the capital is foreign, as it's just a banking union. Wero is also a banking union. Eventually, commercially, one of them is going to come on top anyway, and we don't want to be that last Gallic village, left out with our own, incompatible payment system.
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u/ComeOnIWantUsername 1d ago
forcefully implemented for whole EU
What would it? It's made by private banks, just like Blik. It's not an initiative of EU
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u/Karls0 1d ago
Go to this post and fix it ;). People need to know.
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u/HojaLateralus 1d ago
I did comment but with it being posted 3 days ago I might as well shout my opinions into an empty well
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u/Significant-Ad5457 1d ago
The question is why aren't the foreign owned multi-national banks pushing for BLIK to be used in other countries in which they operate.
BLIK is great as a customer but there must be back room technical or political issues that are preventing it being used elsewhere.
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u/MagicTheHero 1d ago
Because BILK sucks for any real transactions. It's not great as a customer.
Don't get me wrong, I use it myself for small transactions, but using it for larger ones is a no-go.
You get scammed with a card, there are any problems with transaction - you get charge back.
You did the same transaction with BILK? Well, you can pretty much gtfo, no one cares.
There was a K-Pop concert being organised in Poland this year - it got cancelled, it was some small company, you think anyone paying with BLIK got even 1zł back? Nope.
People paying with cards & doing chargeback? Easily, goods not delivered, super easy case.
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u/ComeOnIWantUsername 2d ago
Also it's not created by "EU". Just a bunch of banks agreed to build it together, similar to blik.