About
BLIK - innovative answer to rising competition on mobile payments market
Innovation presentation
In July 2013 representatives of 6 banks located in Poland (PKO Bank Polski, Alior Bank, Bank Zachodni WBK, BRE Bank, and ING Bank Slaski, Millennium Bank) agreed on a strategic cooperation in the development of the standard hereinafter called BLIK and founded formally Polish Payment Standard Ltd. This project was preceded by implementation of IKO mobile app in PKO Bank Polski in March 2013. IKO was a foundation to create Polish Payment Standard as a separate entity for further development of mobile payments. IKO allowed customers to make POS, online payments and ATM withdrawals and to generate mobile vouchers. IKO was the first application in Poland (and Europe) connected directly to user’s banking account and making possible to pay with a mobile phone. Today IKO and other mobile banking applications of banks being Polish Payment Standard members generate a digital code - BLIK - to authorize all types of mobile payments such as: POS payment, ATM withdrawal, Internet payment and vouchers. Furthermore, soon it will be possible to make P2P payments to a mobile phone number among BLIK users no matter the bank of the transfer’s recipient is and to show current account balance, transaction history and many more mobile banking features. Further development and plans include contactless technology, location based services and involvement of other banks.
Uniqueness of the project
Although BLIK, as an open standard, was the idea of PKO Bank Polski, it was implemented by banks gathered in PSP (Alior Bank, Bank Zachodni WBK, mBank, ING Bank Slaski and Millennium Bank). Moreover, new banks and new acquirers are willing to join BLIK as a part of their mobile payments strategies. Poles prefer traditional ways of payment, but people who are ‘bankable’ benefit from innovative solutions. Contactless cards are much more popular in Poland than in UK because young and prospective clients want pay easier and faster. Most of the services are available using smartphones that is why the banking sector has to follow the customers’ needs. Polish market is expecting innovative ways of banking. The solution can increase the level of revenue from non-cash payments. It seems that the simplification of payment by limiting the number of traditional payments on the market is the direction of the development of payment services in Poland and abroad. System should contribute to reduce the costs of financial institutions. e. g. by not having to issue and renew of payment cards. Until now there was no such solution on the market. There were mobile payments systems which had a marginal significance.
How does it work? When making any kind of transaction, user has to log in to the application and use a 6-digit BLIK code on display e.g. in retail store. It is faster than paying by payment card and more convenient – clients don’t have to take their wallets with them. What is more, it enables to pay even when the phone is offline – there is a possibility to use a mobile voucher generated in the application. You can also generate BLIK code before logging on to the application. Currently, it is possible to use the service BLIK on any mobile device. It does not require having NFC functionality. In the future it is planned to use a contactless method on the mobile devices with NFC function.
Paying by BLIK is safe. User has to enter a password when logging in to the application and confirm every single transaction. The core of the system is located in Polish headquarters of Polish Payment Standard and integrated with acquiring parties and Banks. It is the world's first solution with such unique model of cooperation between Banks, payment acquires, merchants and supported by innovative information technology architecture and design.
