VIAMO has officially got a new owner - BLIK has obtained the approval of the National Bank of Slovakia and completed the acquisition of the payment platform
After obtaining the approval from the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS), Polski Standard Płatności, the operator of the mobile payment system BLIK, acquired control of the Slovak company VIAMO, a.s. (VIAMO), which specializes in P2P and e-commerce payments.
BLIK acquired 100% shares in mTrust s.r.o., which owns VIAMO. VIAMO has been operating in the market since 2013 and has earned the status of a payment institution. Its portfolio of services includes P2P payments, payments through the VIAMO PayGate payment gateway and also online payments. Currently, it cooperates closely with two banks: VUB and Tatra Banka. However, its services can be used by clients of all the banks in Slovakia through a special VIAMO Plus application.
BLIK is an innovative mobile payment system created by banks in Poland in 2015. Currently, it is the most popular way of payment in the country. It allows users to pay online, through payment terminals, deposit and withdraw cash from ATMs, and send money to other people in real-time. In 2021, the service portfolio was expanded by contactless payments. The intention of the Polish company is to introduce BLIK services to the Slovak market in cooperation with VIAMO.
In line with our development strategy, we have been working for a long time to cross the Polish borders. One of the key steps is the investment in the VIAMO payment platform, which has been successfully operating in the Slovak market for ten years and has gained exceptional popularity among several hundred thousand users. We believe that with the support of the Slovak team, we can grow faster, not only in this country
- says Dariusz Mazurkiewicz, CEO of Polski Standard Płatności, the operator of BLIK mobile payment system.
BLIK has caused a revolution in the Polish payment market. In eight years of its presence, it has gained a significant number of active and loyal users - 25.9 million mobile applications are registered in the system, and approximately 13 million users regularly make payments through it. From 2015 to the end of 2022, almost 2.8 billion transactions, of combined worth of €81.7 billion (PLN 371.4 billion) were carried out through BLIK.
E-commerce payments have become popular among Polish and Slovak consumers in recent years and they are becoming increasingly more important in the countries system. We believe that the cooperation between BLIK and VIAMO, as well as the development of an offer based on the strengths of both companies, will bring tangible benefits to bank customers using modern forms of settlement
- adds Michał Szymański, Director of New Markets Strategy at Polski Standard Płatności, the operator of the BLIK mobile payment system, and emphasizes that soon more information about the first effects of these actions will be available.
BLIK has a presence in Central and Eastern Europe beyond Poland and Slovakia. At the end of last year, BLIK Romania S.A. was established to promote the BLIK mobile payment system in Romania.
Polski Standard Płatności is continuing to work on a solution that will cover the entire eurozone, and VIAMO will be an important part of this project.
BLIK is a common standard for mobile payments. Currently, virtually every customer of domestic payment institutions offering a mobile application has the option of using BLIK in mobile banking applications. Polish Payment Standard (Polski Standard Płatności, PSP) is responsible for the development of the system. PSP constantly develops BLIK's capabilities so that the system is as functional as possible. The shareholders of PSP are: Alior Bank, Bank Millennium, Santander Bank Polska, ING Bank Śląski, mBank, PKO Bank Polski, and Mastercard.
For further information, please contact:
Klaudia Rombalska
BLIK Press Office
