PKO BP seeks to break Polcard's monopoly on Diners Club transactions

Bank PKO BP is the biggest domestic issuer of Diners Club (DC) cards. Between January and mid-April it issued 12,000 new DC cards, but the bank's clearing center, eService, has no right to process DC transactions. "Polcard has exclusivity for clearing these. This makes it harder for other centers to negotiate terms of placing their terminals in hotels and car rentals," said the president of eService Marek Paradowski. Polcard, however, does not see any problem with the situation as, "It was DC's decision to give these rights to us. Only our customer has the right to decide on this issue," said Polcard spokeswoman Renata Gawkowska. According to Puls Biznesu, the deputy president of PKO BP filed a motion against the monopoly of Polcard. "We are satisfied with cooperation with this clearing center," said general director of DC Marek Smolarz. [For related news see next story] (Puls Biznesu, p. 7) M.M.