Blik Embarks on International Expansion
A new competitor is emerging in the realm of digital payments, challenging the dominance of giants like Mastercard, Visa, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Following its success in Poland, Blik now sets its sights on expanding across the Eurozone and, broadly speaking, Western Europe. However, the initial steps will commence in Romania and Bulgaria.
Monika Król, Vice President of Blik, when asked by Business Insider about Blik’s future development plans, emphasized that their current priority is launching payments in Slovakia and Romania. She confirmed that the first demonstrative transaction had already taken place in Slovakia, with expectations for regulatory approval in Romania. Król underscored that Blik’s expansion plans are concentrated on the entire Eurozone, with a keen focus on markets such as Italy, Spain, France, and Germany, where substantial potential for e-commerce payment development is seen.
Król highlighted Blik’s versatility as its strength, offering more than just e-commerce transactions, including features like Point-of-Sale payments and transfers via phone numbers. She emphasized, “Our strength lies in the attractiveness of Blik, stemming from our comprehensive offer.”
Blik Euro, a project currently in its conceptual phase, aims to provide a similar user experience to what Polish customers are familiar with. Król mentioned ongoing discussions in Europe about the necessity for a pan-European local solution independent of American payment systems like Apple Pay and Google Pay, stating that Blik, with its comprehensive payment offering, has the potential to be one such solution.
Król listed Blik’s scalability and robust business case as key strengths, expressing optimism about its expansion beyond Poland. Legal, conceptual, and technological work is underway for Blik’s entry into the European market, with technical-conceptual work expected to last at least a year.
Regarding expansion into non-European markets, Król mentioned prior discussions but emphasized the strategic concentration on Europe for the time being, with potential discussions about other markets in the future.
What is Blik?
Blik serves as a universal standard for mobile payments, developed by the company Polski Standard Płatności (Polish Payment Standard). Shareholders of PSP include Alior Bank, Bank Millennium, Santander Bank Polska, ING Bank Śląski, mBank, PKO Bank Polski, and Mastercard.
From January to December 2023, Blik users, totaling approximately 16 million, conducted nearly 1.8 billion transactions worth almost a quarter of a trillion Polish zlotys. Since its inception, the system has processed over 4.5 billion transactions worth 614.4 billion zlotys, with the majority occurring in e-commerce.
The second most utilized and fastest-growing Blik service is transfers via phone numbers, with over 415 million transactions, a 71% increase from the previous year. As of December last year, 15.8 million individuals were actively and regularly using Blik for their transactions.
