I've been waiting for a long time, but this day has finally come. The National Bank of Poland agreed to raise the limit for contactless payments that don't require entering a PIN code to 100 zł (approx. 24 euros). The news was announced by Mastercard. Its competitor Visa declared the willingness to take similar actions. Mastercard stated that the new rules for contactless payments using the company’s cards will come into effect no sooner than the second quarter of 2019.

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The necessity of raising the limit for "PIN-free" transactions in Poland has been a topic of debate for several years. The current limit of 50 zł was established over 10 years ago. A lot has changed since that time. First and foremost, cashless payments have become very common, and the worries about their security turned out to be unnecessary. Even though most card transactions in Poland are now contactless, the local fraud rate is one of the lowest in Europe and globally.

Besides, the PIN-free transaction limits in most countries in Europe are much higher than in Poland. In Great Britain the limit is 30 pounds (approx. 145 zł, or 35 euros), while in France and Ireland - 30 euros (approx. 130 zł). Even some Central-Eastern European countries have higher limits. In Lithuania it is set at 25 euros (105 zł), in Romania - 100 leus (90 zł, or 21 euros), and in Slovakia - 20 euros (85 zł).

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A survey conducted by Polasik Research shows that 67 percent of Poles who use contactless payments support the raising of the limit for transactions that don't require entering a PIN code to 100 zł. - Raising the limit for PIN-free transactions to 100 zł will make contactless technology even more convenient and more common, making the evolution towards a digital world faster. We think that the Polish market is mature enough and ready for the change - says Bartosz Ciołkowski, Mastercard Europe's country manager for Poland.