Apple Pay Said to Be Arriving in Poland in Early 2018

Apple Pay could arrive in Poland as soon as the first quarter of 2018, according to financial technology site cashless.pl. Several independent sources are said to have confirmed active negotiations between Apple and five banks operating in the country, including Alior, BZ WBK, and mBank.

According to the Polish tech site, all banks operating in Poland received an offer from Apple earlier this month to make Apple Pay available to their customers. Some of the banks are said to have declined the offer, but the banks listed above are reportedly negotiating financial terms to start supporting the digital wallet in the first half of 2018.

applepay
Given that the banks have already implemented MasterCard or Visa tokenization – the same technology used by Apple Pay to securely link a payment card number to a mobile device – rollout could happen very quickly as soon as negotiations have concluded.

The rollout will reportedly take place with active support from payment companies including Mastercard, although there's no word on whether Visa will be involved in the implementation at this stage.

The last time we heard about plans for Apple Pay in Poland was in October, when an anonymous tipster emailed in an alleged screenshot of Apple Pay being tested with a Mastercard from PKO Bank Polski, for a possible debut in the country by the end of this year. PKO was not mentioned in today's source, however, and may have just been used as a placeholder card for Apple's internal testing only.

(Thanks, Krzysiek!)

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
Tag: Poland

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Top Rated Comments

Berti10 Avatar
94 months ago
Ich geb‘s auf... Ich zieh nach Polen.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
austria_ 10 Avatar
94 months ago
Ohh come on!
Where‘s the rollout for Austria :(
Ich warte auch :(
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
blesio Avatar
94 months ago
This is good news, however I cannot see big adoption in Poland right now. My understanding is that Apple only has 5% market share so this is why the banks are not signing up - the handsets are too expensive for this region.
I don't know where you're getting the 5% adoption from. Everywhere I look on the streets I see Iphones.... strange, right?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Paccos Avatar
94 months ago
Ich geb‘s auf... Ich zieh nach Polen.
(Trans: "I give up, I'm moving to Poland!")

I second this. For years, some Germans made fun of Poland for being a bit behind, technologically. Now they're overtaking us. For a so called "Leader of mid-European economy" this is just plain ridiculous.

Edit: Wording
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Ribitsch Avatar
94 months ago
Ohh come on!
Where‘s the rollout for Austria :(
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
PR1985 Avatar
94 months ago
Ich geb‘s auf... Ich zieh nach Polen.
Stay here! 2018!
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)