PKO BP is the first bank from Poland to join the European payment card project
The press office of PKO BP announced that the bank has joined the European Payments Initiative. It is a group established by 16 large banks from all over Europe. PKO BP is the first and so far the only Polish institution to join the EPI organization, and it happened at the end of November this year.
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EPI is an alliance of banks with the goal of building a European payment system with its own cards for consumers and businesses, a digital wallet, instant payments and mobile transfers. The EIP underlines that it will support European public institutions by creating a payment solution. According to the originators, it is to bring financial benefits to the European financial sector.
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It is worth recalling that the EIP is not the first initiative of this type in Europe. In the past, there have been attempts to compete with Mastercard and Visa - the American payment organizations that dominate the European market. So far, however, these attempts have been unsuccessful. Interestingly, a few years ago, also in Poland, the creation of a Polish payment card was discussed. The president of PKO BP, Zbigniew Jagiełło, was then against this idea, arguing that creating a plastic card in the era of mobile payments does not make sense.