Polish MPs propose telecoms share recycled phone numbers to curb misdirected BLIK transfers
A bill drafted by Polish MPs would oblige telecom operators to pass lists of phone numbers that may be reassigned to payment providers. The aim is to stop BLIK transfers reaching strangers who have taken over a previous owner's number.
The problem
Money sent with BLIK to a phone number can end up in the account of a stranger when that number has been given to someone new. Dziennik Gazeta Prawna (DGP) reported in its Tuesday edition of 13 October 2026 that the problem arises in transfers made through banks' mobile apps, where the recipient is identified by a phone number. The number stays linked to an account after its holder changed it or died, and the bank was never told, so the link between number and account goes stale. The sources call these transfers stray transfers (zabłąkane przelewy), because the money reaches a person other than the intended recipient.
What the bill would do
The proposal adds a new article 396a to the Electronic Communications Law (Prawo komunikacji elektronicznej). It would require telecom companies to give payment service providers or payment organisations a list of phone numbers assigned to subscribers that may be allocated to other people once a contract ends. Banks and payment operators would therefore learn about freed-up numbers before they are reassigned, which would let them check whether a number linked to an account still belongs to the right person. The sources cite two situations: a customer who switches operator and takes the number with them, and a person who dies without the bank being informed.
Telecoms and payment operators split
Telecom operators are critical of the proposal, while payment providers welcome it. Polski Standard Płatności, the operator of the BLIK system, supports the bill. Jerzy Mroczek, legal department director at Polski Standard Płatności, rated the amendment clearly positive, saying:
The goal is to increase the security of the entire payment environment, including telecoms, which are also beneficiaries of payments.
Piotr Kędzierski, director of the regulation and wholesale market department at T-Mobile Polska, accepts that the goal matters but objects to how the obligation is designed. He notes that the bill places the duty only on telecom companies, and he argues that telecoms are merely a source of certain data rather than providers of these financial services. He put his objection this way:
Limiting the risk of mistaken phone transfers is important, but the proposed solution (...) shifts onto telecom operators the obligation to secure financial sector services that operators neither designed nor provide.
The disagreement therefore comes down to who should bear the costs and responsibility for securing phone-number transfers. Kędzierski does not dispute that the underlying risk is real, and he says there is no doubt about the bill's purpose.
Open questions
The proposal remains a draft drawn up by MPs and has not yet become law. The sources do not say how many transfers have gone to wrong recipients, nor what compliance would cost telecom operators. They also do not set out a timetable for the bill's passage through parliament.
