BLIK, which dominates the Polish mobile payments market, is embarking on a key test to solve its biggest strategic challenge: the lack of native interoperability outside Poland. The Web Summit 2025 conference in Lisbon showcased the first successful P2P transaction in euros, sent from Portugal’s MB WAY system to the phone number of a Santander Bank Polska customer registered with BLIK.
This is a symbolic beginning of a pilot to connect previously closed, national payment systems. For BLIK, this is a strategic necessity. Having established itself as a hegemon in Poland, further growth requires international expansion or, as in this case, integration with foreign partners.
The project is being developed within the EuroPA association, which BLIK joined in May 2025. The logic behind the operation is simple: instead of competing, the local champions (BLIK, Portugal’s MB WAY, Spain’s Bizum, Italy’s Bancomat and Scandinavia’s Vipps) are joining forces. At launch, their combined potential reach is more than 100 million users.
Technologically, the solution is based on the existing infrastructure, the SEPA Instant transfer system, which supports payments in euro. The challenge that the pilot solves is not the money transfer itself, but the ‘mapping’ of phone numbers assigned to bank accounts in different countries and systems.
In the first phase of testing, Polish BLIK users will only be able to receive transfers in euros. On the Polish side, Santander Bank Polska is taking part in the pilot and, as announced in Lisbon, PKO Bank Polski will join in December. PKO BP representatives hope that the huge popularity of BLIK transfers in PLN (over 50 million quarterly at PKO alone) will translate into rapid adoption of the new service.
The overarching goal is to build European payment sovereignty and create a viable P2P alternative for global technology players and fintechs. The success of the pilot is also expected to be crucial for BLIK’s expansion into Slovakia, which would immediately gain access to an international money transfer network.
