Another Cashless Breakfast event was held in Warsaw, during which we presented the Panorama of Polish payments and announced the winners of the Cashless Pay 2021 plebiscite. During the debate we also touched upon the most current issues governing the payments industry in Poland. But one by one.

After opening the meeting and welcoming the guests by cashless.pl editor-in-chief Jacek Uryniuk, Adrian Kurowski, country manager of Visa in Poland, took the floor. He indicated a few issues that in his opinion will determine the development of the payment industry in the nearest future.

"I think that 2022 in payments will primarily be marked by open banking, which offers many new development opportunities. Secondly, deferred payments and cross-border payments will also be decisive factors. Finally, there will also be solutions from the area of cryptocurrencies, which in Poland is hardly noticeable for regulatory reasons, but abroad it ignites emotions", said Adrian Kurowski.

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Then, we presented Panorama of Polish Payments 2021. This is the second edition of the project, which last year was called Map of Polish Payments. Panorama of Polish Payments gathers in one place information on more than 230 companies and other ventures in the payments area. Panorama of Polish Payments 2021 was also included in the report, which can already be downloaded on the cashless.pl website. Just click on the report cover below.

Another item on the agenda of today's Cashless Breakfast was a discussion panel, which included: Patrycja Rajczykowska-Strugalska, director of the open banking department at Santander Bank Polska, Paweł Bułgaryn, deputy director of the Strategic Management Department at the Ministry of Finance and also a member of the Council of the Cashless Poland Foundation, and Robert Łaniewski, president of the Foundation for the Development of Cashless Trade.

Santander's representative referred to information on the growing interest in the installation of payment terminals by companies wishing to comply with the obligation to accept cashless payments introduced on 1 January this year. "This growing interest is not yet visible in the volume of processed transactions, but we expect it to happen in the coming months" said Patrycja Rajczykowska- Strugalska. In a way, she also confirmed Adrian Kurowski's words about open banking. In her opinion, more and more payments in the e-commerce environment are already made using open banking and the share of such instruments is growing.

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Paweł Bułgaryn from the Ministry of Finance, on the other hand, confirmed that the growing interest in payment terminals has been observed for several weeks, which can be seen, among other things, in the increased number of new customers wishing to take advantage of the Poland Without Cash foundation's programme. However, he reminded that the obligation existing since 1 January this year is to accept any cashless payments. "The act does not therefore require the installation of a traditional payment terminal", the finance ministry representative said.

In turn, FROB president Robert Łaniewski drew attention to another provision that comes into force on 1 July 2022. We are talking about the obligation to integrate payment terminals with online fiscal cash registers. This provision arouses considerable emotions among equipment operators who demand an extension of the transition period. However, according to the president of the FROB, it has been known for several years that the new obligation will appear sooner or later and now it should not be delayed.

The culminating point of today's event was the announcement of the results of the Cashless Pay 2021 poll for the most interesting payment solution and the most interesting payment card, which premiered last year on the Polish market. By votes of cashless.pl readers, the title Cashless Pay 2021 for the most interesting payment solution went to Polski Standard Płatności for the implementation of the contactless Blik (the top three also included Allegro Pay and a biometric card of Bank Pocztowy).

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The title Cashless Pay 2021 for the most interesting payment card went to Bank Pocztowy (its biometric card was nominated in both categories). The top three in this category also included a new card from Volkswagen Bank and a metal Visa from PKO BP. After the announcement of the plebiscite results, we invited all guests to a networking session.

Finally, we would like to inform you about the prizes for the readers who, in addition to voting in the poll, decided to justify their choice. The most interesting contributions were those sent by: Aleksandra Doktor from Bielsko-Biała (receives an iPhone from us), Leszek Bielecki from Krzepielów (receives an Apple Watch) and Kinga Kowalska from Działdów, Elżbieta Flak from Zamość and Katarzyna Sawicka from Wrocław (all won a Mi Band for Xiaomi Pay payments). Two other winners of Mi Band wristbands have not yet responded to our e-mails with information about winning. We are waiting for a response from them. If you have voted in our poll and justified your choice, please check your e-mail. Maybe you are the one who won Mi Band.

The Panorama of Polish Payments 2021 project and the Cashless Pay plebiscite were supported by strategic partners, i.e. Visa and Santander Bank Polska, as well as the technology partner, PayPo.