The National Bank of Poland has given the go-ahead for the launch of Blik, a mobile payments service backed by six Polish banks that lets customers make payments in stores and online, withdraw cash from ATMs and send P2P transfers with their mobile phones.

Blik uses an open standard developed by Polish Payment Standard (PSP), a company formed by Alior Bank, Bank Millennium, Bank Zachodni WBK, ING, mBank and PKO Bank Polski, and is based on technology originally developed by PKO for its Iko mobile payments service.

“The standard will be open for other banks, acquirers and merchants,” PSP told NFC World+. “Letters of intent have been signed with major players in the market — Eurobank, BNP Paribas Bank Polska, Credit Agricole, Getin Bank, Idea Bank, Dotpay, CashBill, IT Card etc.”

“From a customer’s point of view, it will not matter any longer what bank or what mobile service provider an individual is using — the service will be available to any customer who has a smartphone and has a bank account with a participating bank.”