The National Bank of Poland has just published a report entitled ‘Comparison of selected elements of the Polish payment system with the systems of other European Union countries for 2024’. This regular publication by the central bank provides an overview of the development of the payment services market relative to other economies on the continent.

Poland performed particularly well in terms of the number of payments made at terminals per card and the share of cashless payments in total card transactions. Both indicators place us second in the European Union, at 196.1 and 97 per cent, respectively.

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The data on the number of payment terminals is also interesting. According to NBP data, at the end of 2024, there were 1.375 million terminals in Poland, or 36,500 per million inhabitants. Although it is often said that the Polish market is highly saturated in this regard, the statistics seem to contradict this claim. The Polish market ranks 11th in the EU in this respect and is well below the EU average of 43,900 terminals per million inhabitants.

The fact that there may be even more terminals in Poland is also indicated by the average number of transactions per device. It amounts to 6,600 and is significantly higher than the EU average of 3,400.

The central bank's analysis also includes data on the number of bank branches. At the end of 2024, there were 10,200 of them in Poland, or 271.8 per million inhabitants. This put Poland in eighth place in Europe, where the average is 255.3 bank branches per million. The leader, Austria, has a ratio of 384.4.

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In terms of the number of accounts per capita – 2.7 – we are above the EU average of 2. However, in terms of the number of ATMs per million inhabitants – 552.7 – we perform poorly, as the EU average is 714.7, and in Austria it is as high as 1,458.

The data on the number of cards issued is also interesting. Poland, with an index of 1.2 per capita, ranks last among EU countries, where the average is 2. Lithuania is the leader, with an index of 15.3. However, this figure is artificially inflated. The NBP writes that this is due to one of the institutions licensed in this country serving customers across the European Union. The name of this institution is not mentioned here, but I think it may be Revolut.