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FinTechs belonging to this category offer alternative payment services which are supposed to provide a faster and cheaper way for national, European, and international payments for private and business customers by using new technologies.
For example, payment service providers hereby offer solutions to easily integrate several payment services in online shops.
Some FinTechs furthermore provide real cash register systems and online-reservation solutions for restaurants and shops providing their own payment services or making use of the payment services of FinTechs described above.
Introduction
Attitude of the country towards modern payment services
Poland is a modern payments market, with an increase in mobile payments and merchants embedding payments into their retail customer applications. The most important areas of the PayTech sector in Poland include: contactless payment cards, card-based mobile payments, non-card-based mobile payments, instant payment systems and electronic money.
Contactless card payments are very developed in Poland and supported by the government-sponsored Cashless Poland Program, which subsidises costs of POS hardware and merchant service charges for new merchants. This program has caused the number of POS terminals to reach 1.4 million, of which more than 660,000 were subsidised.
In recent years, many sectors have seen a significant shift toward digital payments. For example, the share of cashless transactions in parking and toll payments grew from just 10% in 2018 to 51% in 2024. Similar growth was recorded in vending machines (from 31% to 69%) and in public transport and taxi payments (from 9% to 41%).
Legal affairs
Obligations and requirements to provide payment services or ancillary services described above
The regulations regarding payment services in Poland are included in the Payment Services Act (ustawa o uslugach platniczych), which implements the PSD and PSD II Directive. Payment Services Act includes a catalog of activities that are understood to constitute the provision of payment services. Such services may be performed only by payment service providers – i.e. banks, payment institutions, electronic money institutions, payment services bureaus.
Companies conducting activities regulated by the Payment Services Act may operate as a national payment institution, a small payment institution or a payment services bureau. National payment institutions, small payment institutions and payment services bureaus are supervised by the Financial Supervision Authority (Komisja Nadzoru Finansowego, KNF).
The national payment institution status is a solution that allows provision of payment services on a full scale. Depending on the type of payment services the entity intends to provide, the initial capital of national payment institution must amount to at least EUR 20,000, EUR 50,000 or EUR 125,000. The cost of the licensing process is EUR 1,250.