The National Bank of Poland (NBP) published a report on the payment card market in Poland in Q1 2020. Among the many data contained therein were statistics on contactless cards. The NBP reported that the share of the number of contactless payments in the total card turnover in the period January-March 2020 was 91.1 percent. This is the first time in history when it has exceeded 90 percent and one of the largest quarterly increases in research history. The previous record recorded in Q4 2019 was 89.4 percent.

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In addition, the share of the value of contactless transactions in the value of all card payments was also record-breaking. At the end of March it amounted to 84.1 percent. The previous record, also recorded in the last quarter of last year, was 81.4 percent. Interestingly, it is worth adding that at the end of the first quarter of this year there were 41.2 million different types of payment contact instruments on the market (plastic cards, virtual cards, stickers, etc.) This is over 340 thousand more than a quarter earlier.

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From other data contained in the report published today by the NBP, it is worth noting the drop from 67.3 percent to 66.8 percent of the share of active cards in the banking portfolio. This means that almost a third of cards issued by institutions remain inactive. The central bank also said that Mastercard and Visa remain the dominant payment organizations on the Polish market. The former had 47.7 percent at the end of Q1 2020. market share (an increase by 0.4 percentage point compared to December 2019) and Visa - 51.6 percent (decrease by 0.3 percentage point).