Poland’s most successful mobile-payment company is starting its international expansion with an ambitious goal to revolutionize cardless transactions across the European Union.
(Bloomberg) — Poland’s most successful mobile-payment company is starting its international expansion with an ambitious goal to revolutionize cardless transactions across the European Union.
A venture of six Polish banks and MasterCard Inc., Blik boasts of 13 million monthly users — which it says is more than any European peer. It is monetizing transfers by taking a slice of e-commerce transactions, grabbing a 70% share of such deals on the domestic market last year.
The startup, whose popularity in Poland has rivaled payment apps from Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, seeks to become a payment system accessible across the EU, according to Dariusz Mazurkiewicz, the chief executive officer of Polski Standard Platnosci Sp zoo, the company that runs Blik.
“We aim to provide a solution that will ultimately be used by the French and Germans, just like it’s being used by the Poles now,” he said in an interview. “We have achieved success on a large, single market and realize that our model is easily scalable. We want to try expansion.”
No Card Details
Blik offers payment for goods and services, as well as money transfers, without a bank card. The mobile app generates a six-digit code linked to a mobile phone number that allows money to be wired between accounts within seconds.
Blik has set up a unit in Romania where it’s awaiting regulatory approvals to launch operations, Mazurkiewicz said. It’s also venturing into the euro region, where there is still no common payment method, by purchasing Slovak online payments firm Viamo.
Payment systems in big EU nations such as Germany, Italy and France were dominated by traditional credit card companies and supported by Apple and Google apps as well as PayPal Holdings Inc.
Last year, Blik carried 1.2 billion transactions with combined value of 164 billion zloty ($38 billion), 62% more than in 2021. Benchmarked to peers, Blik’s already a $1 billion company, Mazurkiewicz said.
Modern Infrastructure
The company’s expansion in Poland was possible in part because of the country’s relatively modern bank IT infrastructure and Poles’ affinity for mobile pay apps, including contact-less payments. This has reduced reliance on cash faster than in a number of countries in Western Europe at a time that online purchases flourished in the pandemic.
Blik is expanding despite consumer headwinds in eastern Europe, where inflationary pressures have surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago. The company said it can grow in such an environment as people switch to online purchases in search of savings. Blik is also testing a buy-now-pay-later service with Bank Millennium SA, one of its part owners.
An initial public offering isn’t presently on the horizon, he said, but successful expansion could change that.
“Our strong presence in e-commerce allows us to generate cash flows that we can reinvest abroad,” Mazurkiewicz said. “This activity will be crucial if the owners decide to check our valuation on public markets.”
(Updates to clarify Blik’s market position in the first and third paragraphs.)
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