Cash is losing its importance. Poland is a leader in digital payments

Cashless transactions in Poland are developing extremely quickly. The vast majority of society has become convinced of this way of paying for everyday purchases. Contactless payments, including those made via NFC technology in smartphones and watches, are quickly gaining new supporters.

– Payments in Poland are among the most digital in the world, both in terms of mass use and product availability. In physical points of sale, cash accounts for 35%. all transactions, so more than 2/3 of transactions are made with digital payments – says prof. Michał Polasik, director of the Digital Finance Economy Center at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń.

The statistics cited by the expert concern primarily payments made from a bank account using a card or mobile payment. E-commerce payments perform even better.

– Here, digitalization is already very high, exceeding 90%. And we can boast of an extremely effective innovation, liked by customers, i.e. the Blik service, which is used to complete the vast majority of online transactions. – added the expert.

The PolCard from Fiserv study “Payment preferences of Poles 2024” shows that currently 75 percent Poles regularly pay cashless. This result is 5 percentage points better than that observed during the previous edition of the study carried out in the summer of 2022.

38 percent Poles always pay cashless, whenever possible. Nearly one in four (23%) make such payments several times a week. 14 percent declares that he pays this way once a week. As the study shows, the age of respondents does not play a significant role here. Interestingly, as many as 44 percent people aged 70+ pay regularly using non-cash methods. This group saw an increase of 4 percentage points compared to the results from mid-2022. Another quite significant phenomenon is the fact that consumers from larger towns and with higher education are more likely to choose cashless payments.

According to experts, however, it is difficult to predict that cash will be completely replaced by electronic payments. Poland seems to be following a slightly different path than the northern European countries.

– There are countries, primarily Scandinavian ones like Sweden, where cash is even withdrawn from circulation in many retail chains, in Poland the strategic decisions may be different, closer to the strategy of the European Central Bank, i.e. the decision to maintain an appropriate level of cash use, both to include people who have difficulties using digital solutions, but also for security reasons, for example during an energy blackout, cash can still be useful for something – notes prof. Michał Polasik

This does not change the fact that, from a technological point of view, we have reached a level that distinguishes us from other countries in the world.

– In Poland, payments today are as digital as possible, they couldn't be more digital, apart from perhaps the most advanced projects in Asia, we really have nothing to reproach ourselves with and it would be hard to suggest going a few steps further. – emphasizes Krzysztof Korus from the DLK Legal Law Firm.

According to the PolCard from Fiserv report “Payment preferences of Poles 2024”, 74 percent Poles most often pay cashless in supermarkets. More than half (58%) declare this method in the case of pharmacies. A similar percentage (57%) pays digitally for fuel and purchases at gas stations. In the case of drugstores, cosmetics stores and similar, 47 percent answered. subjects.