Payment Cards in Poland is an invaluable guide to one of Eastern Europes quickest growing payment card markets.

The Polish payment card market is small but growing quickly. Each year from 2001 to 2005, growth in card numbers has been, on average, 10.2 per cent, reaching 18.5 million cards in 2005. 81 per cent of these cards were pay now products. Polish consumers primarily use their payment cards as cash acquisition tools, rather than for paying for goods and services directly at a POS terminal.

In 2005 83 per cent of transactions took place at ATMs. The issuing market for payment cards is dominated by four or five large issuers, but there are also many smaller issuers in the country. As a result of this, there has been a great deal of consolidation in the market, and it is reasonable to expect further merger and takeover activity in the future.