Banking providers ING Bank Śląski, mBank, Bank Millennium, Raiffeisen Polbank, eurobank, Getin Bank, Bank Polskiej Spółdzielczości and Bank Smart will join Bank Zachodni WBK in rolling out services utilising Visa’s Cloud-based Payment specifications, enabling customers with payment apps utilising HCE functionality to make contactless payments using an NFC-enabled Android smartphone.

Jeremy Nicholds, executive director for mobile for Visa Europe, says: "Visa’s Cloud-based Mobile Payments can quickly be made available to a large group of consumers and provide a foundation for the bank to offer a wide range of innovative functionalities in the future. Visa’s mobile contactless payment technologies have become an integral part of our Polish members’ mobile banking strategies.”

Poland has been an emthusiastic adopter of contactless payment technology and is currently Visa’s largest market in Europe in terms of contactless transaction volumes. Close to 70% of Visa cards in the market have contactless functionality, accounting for more than 40% of all Visa payments in Poland.

More than 75% of all in-store Point of Sale (POS) terminals support contactless payment, with plans in place for all Polish POS terminals to support the technology by the end of 2017.

The Polish banks join Spain's Bankinter and BBVA in backing Visa's vision for HCE technology for their mobile payments initiatives. The card scheme says it also has a strong pipeline of further launches planned in markets including France, Italy, and Slovakia.