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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 over 1 million, of which nearly 385,000 were subsidised.
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. Act on payment services 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 Commission (Komisja Nadzoru Finansowego).
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.
A payment service bureau is authorized to provide remittance services or other services as a hybrid payment service bureau. Its activity is regulated activity and requires prior registration in the register of payment service providers and electronic money issuers kept by the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (Komisja Nadzoru Finansowego). The entry in the register is subject to a fee of PLN 616 (approx. EUR 130).
Small payments institution is a solution for companies that would first like to test the practical functioning of their solutions on a regulated and supervised financial market. Therefore, limited regulatory requirements apply to them, including the lack of an obligation to obtain KNF (Komisja Nadzoru Finansowego) approval.
Additional comments regarding the legal situation for payment services or what FinTech’s must be aware of in this business area
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Economic conditions
Market size for payment services and biggest payment service providers
Poland belongs to the group of countries with the highest level of contactless card usage in the world. At the end of June 20