Does Poland have the most prehistorical and strictest banking system in the world?

You should have asked how long to cash a cheque denominated in Zloty ;)

Man, she was already confused enough.

What is the point in using cheques anyway? The most inconvenient and useless way of paying! We moved away from them a long time ago.

It helps save paper too ... trees are very important for the environment!

yeah... i rearly do that... my favourite thing is when an old lady gets her check book to pay for groceries in a store... it takes forever! :)

Some of the best forgers and counterfitters have come from Poland. Ever. Ask the U.S. Secret Service.

Get direct deposit and welcome to Poland, KellyUS.

Ok she just called me back.It would take 4-6 weeks to cash it and a fee of $75.


No it don't.Now they simply scan or whatever the cheque,doesn't take longer than a credit card.

you must have faster grannies around...

Ah, but granny must write out the cheque first, surely?

I am not a granny and I pay with checks at grocery stores.You don't need to fill out a check only sign a receipt.


No they scan it just like a credit card.

that's credit card...

OMG go to any supermarket and try to pay with a cheque,you will see how it works,you can even take a cash out this way.

i won't bother.... but thanks :)

No, in my opinion Poland doesn't have the most prehistorical banking system in the whole world,but (in my opinion) you are very ignorant person.


No problem.

Poland is behind in banking technology at least 20 years.

You my friend are behind the technology as well.

You can cash your checks online nowadays (on the web) at most US banks and then transfer the money to a Polish bank account (of course you gonna get charged a fee) it takes 10 min. All you need is a camera in your phone and the internet access.

Why can't they pay you in a more convenient format? Perhaps your employer should catch up with the rest of the world

I was reading something which looked like: "I got this bar of gold in my pocket and they told me it will take ages to turn them into American Dollars!!! What kind of pre-historic country is this?! Can't even cahnge gold bars?!" People use credit cards... get real

I have got my US check in the letter after 10 days of postal travellling. I brought it to the bank in Cracow and I heard: "Why check? You will have to wait next 30 days because we have to check it. Try just simple transfer without this useless paper!"

I called to US then, I gave my account, Swift Code etc. and I have got my money after 6 hours. Now I don't understand why people are wasting their time and paper for writing checks.

According to my several years experience with CE countries Poland has the most developed bank system among them.

You cannot check a US bank in a UK bank, its impossible. In fact checks are being discontinued as they are obsolete.

Try cashing a non- US check in the US. They won't do it. The US banking system is pretty poor in itself, worse than many other western countries.

It is not that the Polish system is antiquated but the US one is compared to the rest of the modern world. Checks?!? Whey went out of widespread use in Poland in 1930s. I used to pay petty change I owned my buddies via an over the phone wire transfer. Heh, try to do a wire transfer in the US. I actually did that a few times and I try to avoid it whenever I can. Not only you have to file a mile long document, they actually charge for the transfer itself. The first check I used I forgot to sign. My buddy who is an expat from Hong Kong did the same thing...

But now I am stuck with the same thing. After 2 years the hospital my sister in law were treated at send us a refund for an overcharge of $120. They moved out of US over a year ago and no longer maintain an account here. How do I/they cash it?

Kelly,

Try to arrange a direct deposit to your bank account in the US then do a wire transfer to your polish account.
Unfortunately my experience is that to do wire transfer in US you have to show up in the bank in person, at least the first time, but then you can schedule it as a recurring thing.

Two years ago I received an unexpected check from the US Treasury, probably some kind of Obama incentive. I took it to my bank and they had to verify that it was real before they would put the money in my account. It took four months. Checks are a major pain! Wire transfers are quick and easy.

This thread made me giggle. If anything is prehistorical, it's definitely checks themselves!

Here in Canada my last job paid in cheques. Its still one of the main to do things :|

My dad visited Poland first time in 25+ years and he basically said that parts of Poland were more advanced than NA and other European countries.

Its common sense that in Canada and US not everything is modern.

With the mount of banking companies that pounced on Poland as an emerging market over the last 10 years their banking systems are anything but dated. The shear amount of banks in Poland is right up there with butchers and vegetable shops, they are everywhere in name and number, you wonder how the market can absorb them.

Well, from IT perpective I've managed to have some contact with this cheque thing a few years ago and what I can tell you is that this entire process looked back then like a pain in the a**. If I remember correctly process flow, in the end this cheque ended in NBP anyway (but not sure about that part). Back then the problem was the net of the contacts between Polish and foreign banks. Bank X couldn't just send that cheque directly to bank Y, it required middlebanks. Anyway it was very outdated way of paymants already back then. Bank needed that cheque module only just in case. Comparing to other modules it was almost never in use. So to sum things up cheques were/are so rare in Poland that banks didn't bother with proper development of that service both on technical and operational level. And it is hard to blame them, using cheque in the era of electronic SWIFT messages seems a little bit Amish ;)

As for general perpective, at least from technical point of view Polish banking sector moved ahead of western one simply because full scale informatization took place later than in the west - so it just skipped initial phase of it. Besides some foreign banks treated newly opened banks in Poland as a IT training grounds before they incorporated some solutions to their main branches.

All in all for sure at least from technical perspective Polish banking system is not prehistorical, that is why it is not friendly to dinosaurs ;)

Merged: Banking Regulations in Poland stricter than in other countries?

I've heard that Poland's banking regulations are stricter than in alot of other countries. Can anyone give me some examples of banking regulations that are unique to Poland or at least different from many other countries in Europe or worldwide?

I personally tried to add a family member (with the same last name) to have access to my bank account. They refused to do it because I only had my Polish (valid - EU) drivers license. They demanded a dowod osobisty or passport. Since then I avoid this bank (ING).