BLIK doubles its results: 153 million transactions in the first quarter 2021

In the first quarter of this year, users made 153 million BLIK transactions – this is almost twice as many as in the same period of 2020. The total value of transactions also doubled in comparison with the first three months of last year and amounted to PLN 20 billion. The number of active BLIK users (those who make at least one transaction per month) increased to 7.6 million people – a 55% year-on-year increase. This is also 600,000 more people than at the end of the fourth quarter of 2020.

More than 74% of transactions in the first quarter of this year were made online; there were almost 114 million of them, of which more than 4 million were transactions made in global e-commerce, settled by international payment operators. The value of online transactions was almost PLN 13 billion. At the end of 2020, BLIK overtook payment cards in terms of the number of transactions made in global e-commerce (Polish and foreign) for the first time.

BLIK’s second most popular function is that of phone transfers. Almost 19 million such transactions were made from January to March this year. This is 156% more than in the same period last year. BLIK phone transfer is the fastest and safest method of transferring money between users, especially during the pandemic. The value of such transactions in the first quarter was PLN 2 billion (EUR 450 million). This method of transferring money – immediately and at any time – can be used by the customers of 10 banks.

The number of transactions in traditional payment terminals increased year-on-year by 94% to 13.6 million transactions in the first quarter of the year. Their value during this time was approaching a billion PLN. The pandemic has accelerated the growth of interest in non-cash settlements in Poland as well as the trend of moving away from paying with cash. This is confirmed by data on the number of transactions made by BLIK users in ATMs – in the first quarter of the year, there were as many as 7.2 million of them. This is 16% more than a year earlier, but it is a result that has remained at a comparable level for the last three quarters. The value of transactions made with BLIK at ATMs (cash deposits and withdrawals) in the period in question was PLN 4.5 billion. Users withdrew an average of PLN 622 at a time.

In the first quarter of the year, users made an average of 1.7 million transactions with BLIK per day. This is twice as many as in the same period of 2020. As many as 2.2 million transactions were recorded on the best day in the first quarter. The average value of a BLIK transaction was PLN 131.

About BLIK

The BLIK mobile payment system enables Internet payments to be made, as well as payments at POS terminals, cash withdrawals from ATMs and mobile P2P payments. More than 3/4 of the transactions made with Blik are online payments, more than 9% are P2P transactions, slightly less are F2F transactions at terminals, and almost 7% are ATM withdrawals. BLIK has a dominant share of the mobile payments market in Poland.

BLIK has won many prestigious awards, including the receipt of the title of FinTech of the Year in 2019 by Cashless.pl and FinTech of the Year 2020 by Invest Cuffs, one of Europe’s largest congresses for investors.  

Polish Payments Standard (PSP) is BLIK’s operator. PSP  was established in February 2015 by 6 Polish banks: PKO Bank Polski S.A., Alior Bank S.A., Bank Millennium S.A., ING Bank Śląski S.A., Bank Zachodni WBK S.A. (currently Santander Bank Polska S.A.) and mBank S.A. 16 banks are currently offering the BLIK.