BLIK expands into the EU with Romania, Slovakia live and Austria, Czechia, and Hungary next

Poland’s BLIK is pushing beyond its home market and into the EU, with Romania and Slovakia already live and Austria, Czechia, and Hungary next on the list. For gambling operators and the PSPs that serve them, the interesting part is not the branding: it is the payment mechanics, because BLIK is a bank-based flow with no card rails in the middle.

1. BLIK reported 2.9 billion transactions, €105 billion in turnover, and 20.7 million active users for 2025. That scale matters because it moves the system from “local Polish curiosity” to something PSPs in high-risk verticals need to track in their routing and local payment coverage plans.
2. The product itself is simple: a 6-digit bank code used inside a mobile banking app. There is no card, no BIN, and no card scheme in the middle, which removes the usual Visa and Mastercard decline logic that so often drives headaches for gambling deposits.
3. For operators, the practical upside is obvious. BLIK offers high approval rates, no card-scheme chargeback risk, no MCC-based card blocking, instant settlement, and low fraud because authorization happens in the bank app with two-factor authentication by default. In other words, it behaves more like a bank-transfer flow than a card payment.
4. The catch is distribution. BLIK only works through partner banks, so each country requires separate bank integrations and regulatory approval. Romania is already running against the local Ropay system, and the timeline for each market ranges from several months to 1.5 years.
5. BLIK’s expansion strategy has two tracks: direct partnerships with banks, including Erste Bank, which is an investor and has a presence in AT, CZ, HU, and SK, plus an alliance with EPI/Wero for Western Europe coverage. For PSPs and payment aggregators in gambling, the signal is straightforward: BLIK is now a route worth putting on the roadmap rather than a niche to ignore.

The company is also considering an IPO, using public-market capital to fund aggressive expansion. For high-risk payment teams, that means BLIK could move from “interesting local method” to a more serious acceptance and routing question faster than a lot of people expect.