In the public sphere, there is a perception that Polski Standard Płatności, the operator of the Blik system, is already a unicorn, i.e., a company whose value has exceeded USD 1 billion. To confirm this with certainty, an event such as PSP's stock market debut, the company acquiring a new investor, or conducting a financing round would be necessary. However, since no such events have been announced, the editors of cashless.pl decided to ask professional analysts who study the economic situation of companies daily about the possible valuation of PSP.

Based on the opinions of specialists who agreed to be interviewed, it can indeed be assumed that the Blik operator is already approaching or has already achieved unicorn status. The experts base their opinion on publicly available information, such as PSP's financial documents published to date and the capitalisation of foreign companies in the financial sector, particularly in the payment industry. Let me remind you that last year, the Blik operator recorded revenues of PLN 421 million.

"The range of possible valuations depends largely on the selected peer group and the method used. Based on the median market multiples of global payment companies such as PayPal, Adyen, dLocal, PagSeguro, StoneCo, Toast, and Wise, using EV/EBITDA (capitalisation/EBITDA) or EV/EBIT multiples, we obtain a PSP valuation range of PLN 4 to 6 billion, which reflects the high profitability and scalability of Blik's business model. Based on the P/E (price/earnings) ratio, the company's value may increase to over PLN 6 billion, assuming further growth in the coming years. For comparison, premium companies such as Adyen and Wise currently achieve high EV/EBITDA multiples of 30 and 16, respectively", comments Michał Sobolewski, an analyst at DM BOŚ, for cashless.pl.

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Experts point out that Blik achieves a significantly better margin compared to its competitors. Last year, the company's EBITDA, i.e., gross profit plus depreciation, amounted to nearly PLN 231 million, which was 32.7 percent higher than in 2023. Thus, the EBITDA margin reached 55%. PSP's net profit jumped by 35% compared to 2023, to over PLN 195 million.

"One of Blik's key differentiators from global paytech companies remains its high operating profitability. Blik's EBITDA margins remain at 55%, making it the leader among comparable companies and placing it alongside Ayden (52-57%) and StoneCo (53-56%), while significantly outpacing players such as PayPal (21%) and Block (14-16%). Moreover, EBIT and net profit margins also remain at a highly competitive level. For comparison, the median EBIT and net margins for the peer group hover around 21% and 17%, which highlights the scale of Blik's cost advantage and operational efficiency", adds Sobolewski.

It is worth remembering that we are analysing PSP results for 2024. Meanwhile, a few weeks ago, transaction results for the first half of the year were published, suggesting a significant improvement over the previous year. They show that in the first half of 2025, the number of Blik users increased by 15 percent to 19.4 million. Moreover, the number of transactions increased by 24% to 1.4 billion, and their value reached PLN 207.3 billion, representing a 31% improvement over the previous year.

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"Several factors indicate that Blik has already achieved unicorn status, primarily its consistently high performance and excellent margins. Examining historical results and recently published data on payment volumes for the first half of 2025, an improvement in results is expected compared to 2024. There is also nothing alarming in the 2024 report. Considering that Blik operates in the fintech industry, which is popular among investors, even a simple historical P/E ratio of 20, suggesting a value of around PLN 4 billion, may already be reliable", notes Łukasz Jańczak, an analyst at Erste Securities.

It is worth remembering that PSP's shareholders are banks and Mastercard. The former include Alior, Santander, ING, mBank, Millennium, and PKO BP. As Łukasz Sikora, a partner at EY-Parthenon, tells cashless.pl, because these are publicly traded companies, some of them value their shares in PSP at fair value, suggesting a capitalisation of PLN 2-3 billion for 100% of the shares.

"Although the company is private, its management pursues a very open strategy of communicating its achievements. The latest available data (EBITDA above USD 50 million, with an annual growth rate of over 30 per cent), scope of operations (dominant position in e-commerce), scale of operations and rapid growth (increasing number and value of transactions with growth higher than the market) and recent announcements of international expansion (invitation to banks from the CEE region to invest in Blik), strongly support development scenarios whose value is likely to exceed $1 billion. To 'seal the deal', it is necessary to confirm the valuation through an investment round, IPO, or other capital transaction, which I hope is getting closer with each successful quarter", concludes Sikora.