Polish banks plan for mobile payment

Six of Poland's top banks have teamed up to create a payment system using mobile phones which they believe could grow to rival credit cards and serve as a model for the rest of Europe.

The system in Poland, which the banks want to have in place by the Christmas shopping season, will be based on a platform introduced by PKO BP, which also controls one of the country's top payment companies, eService.

Other banks taking part in the project are Alior Bank , Banco Santander's Bank Zachodni WBK , Commerzbank's BRE Bank and ING Group's ING Bank Slaski. Combined the banks have 16 million clients, or 70 percent of the Polish market.

This is interesting news and one of the first groupings on mobile payments only including banks. Other constillations for example in Spain, USA, Germany, UK and Nordics has included a number of mobile network operator or a number of mobile network operators and one or two banks.