Mastercard and Polish Payment Standard (PSP), the company behind Blik, finally signed a contract that had been in the works since December 2018, when the partnership was announced. The Americans will take over a part of PSP's shares and become one seven equal shareholders in the popular Polish payment system. In exchange, contactless payments with Blik will be supported not only in Poland, but everywhere in the world where Mastercard contactless payments are accepted.

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At this point we don't know how much Mastercard payed for PSP shares. The press release states that “more details of the partnership between PSP and Mastercard will be shared after all formalities are completed”. What we did find out is that the first contactless Blik will be implemented within the next two quarters.

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During a press conference in December 2018, when the strategic partnership between Mastercard and PSP was announced, it was said that Mastercard would allow Blik users to use contactless technology at every sales point in the world that accepts contactless Mastercard payments in the first half of 2019. This will be possible by using the Mastercard Digital Enablement Services (MDES) tokenization technology.