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

Does Poland have the most prehistorical banking system in the whole world?

I receive my salary from my employers in United States though bank check.

Cashing a back check in Poland is a nightmare.

I went yesterday to 9 different banks:

6 banks said they do not cash US checks.
3 banks said there were requirements to this, and it usually takes between 3 and 10 months
to cash a US bank check in US Dollars.

I think this situation is unique in the world, even in 3rd world african countries
they cash US checks in maximum 10 -15 days.

What is your opinion?

Yes and not just in Poland but all ex-communist countries (well the 6 I have been to).


When the iron curtain fell, and these countries modernised, they went straight to credit cards and jumped the whole check book thing.

Find another way to get your money, do not use checkbooks and you'll be fine.

Poland`s banking system uses other forms like: e- banking or banker`s draft, bank transfer .
Which system is prehistorical , what do you think?

But it doesn't depend on me.

My company simply pays all overseas employees only with US bank checks.

And it is a pure nightmare

I wouldnt even dream of paying a foreign cheque into a PL bank account.

the real issue is theyve been subjected to every form of fraud going, a few rotten apples upsetting the cart scenario.

Ask them to change their habits , the world has gone forward .

Companies paying people by cheque? I thought that was long gone as a practice! Expensive and subject to abuse/loss/theft.

I tried it once with a bankers cheque, my bank said it could take upto 6-8 weeks. Utter nonsense.

6-8 weeks is insane by civilized Europe standards, in UK you cash an US check in 2-3 days usually.

In Poland... 3- 10 months...

What the UK banks will be doing will be taking risks on whether or not the cheque is valid.

Polish banks, being far more prudent, will send the cheque to the US to be verified after conducting checks of their own. Perfectly fair and reasonable - after all, in a country where bank transfers are king - who the hell uses cheques?

Incidentally, if you're being paid by an American company by cheque, I assume you're not paying taxes here, nor are you legally resident.

Checks? What are checks? Is it something so bloody modern that the US have and we haven't heard of it yet in Poland?

Remember that the UK have been using cheques for a hundred years but for much of that time Poland had a different system.

As somebody has already pointed out, in the years after communism ended they had to modernise their system, and in Europe cheques are rare so they didn't need to think about them much. The Polish banking system is really quite good nowadays. I'm surprised your company won't transfer it for you - it should be easier for them too..

Why not have the cheque paid into your account in the US and either transfer the money or use your ATM card?

Cheques (note English spelling) are expensive to create, expensive to process and expensive to validate. As others have pointed out, they are from another era and should be avoided. Me, myself and I (all three of us) have experienced no great difficulty with any aspect of banking in Poland. My only minor difficulty relates to the semi-English bank web sites of Polish banks. The fine detail is almost always in Polish - but then I am in Poland and I am the foreigner I guess.

So, in answer to your question No, in my humble opinion Poland does not have a prehistoric banking system. Rather many customers in the US, and other countries do not want to move away from their traditional banking methods such as cheques and maybe even deposit books. I do wish I had kept my piggie bank I had as a child though.

I don't know about the check situation, never bothered to try, but I always thought the fact that my bank didn't have an english version of their website was a bit "prehistoric". No German, Russian, French, Italian.....just a Polish version. Towards the end when I learned the language it wasn't so bad but in the beginning, every transfer I made was pretty scary, always wondering if I'm selecting the right thing. I also thought it was funny that the branch I used to use IN THE RYNEK only had 1 person that could speak English and when that person wasn't around.....tough luck.

Lots of Polish banks have learnt a lesson by trusting too much in cashing bank checks in the 1990-ties . There was a lot of forgers who took advantage of Poland`s outdated banking system at that time . As a lawyer I have had such cases even after 2000 . I remember a movie called -" catch me if you can ". I wonder why checks are still used anyway.

:))) the only reason for using cheques

I have a citi bank business Checking Account in Warsaw,even the cheks issued by there own Branch/Bank are subject to be cashed in 90 days.......wonder why they even have a checking account system if its used to incourage the bank transfer system?or cash economy to encourage tax evasion...cheks infact insure legal transaction with traces left over.

I'd say that still being paid by cheque was rather out of date rather than the Polish banking systems. Customer Service in banks here may be poor at times but the functionality provided by the banks is reasonably advanced. Take for example transferring funds from one bank to another within Poland. You can initiate a transfer in the morning and it will be credited to the account in the other bank by the afternoon, that's been standard here for years.

You might be quickest posting your cheque back to the US to be deposited there and then wiring the funds back over here.

That's not true, it takes between 0-4 days

It is not true . 24 h it is the longest period during week days . Saturday and Sunday can`t count as some banks are closed on weekends

it is true and is a legal standard for Direct debits/Polecenia Zapłaty in Poland for example. The initiating bank sends the request for payment in the morning, the paying bank has to debit/reject by around noon and get the responses back to the initiating bank by the end of business that day. Other types of transfer follow exactly the same path so the functionality does exist. It does vary though per bank how often throughout the day they apply these incoming transfers to accounts, the bigger banks ( Pekao, PKO, HSBC etc) are doing it multiple times per day. So maybe your bank is not utilising the full capability of the Polish ElIXIR retail payments system or perhaps they are only doing it for high value clients/transfers.

If you're sending a transfer late on a Friday then yes it wont hit the other bank until Monday so in that case it could take longer but that's due to the weekend when there are no Elixir sessions after Saturday morning.

Poland banking system is a big shame.

Cheques are being widely used in US and the rest of European Union.

What happens in Poland in the banks it is just a big shame.

So, what exactly does happen there that is so shameful? Care to elaborate?

Bank officers are just IGNORANT.

Banks cannot cash US BANK CHEQUES.

It hapenned to me as well.

Of course they can - and do - but it takes a while. Why would you use a prehistoric payment method such as cheques in the 21st century anyway? Even in the UK everyone is phasing cheques out (thank God).

Stop blaming Poland for your own stubbornness and backwardness.

In US it takes 0-4 days to cash a check.

In Poland it takes 4 - 30 weeks.

Of course, US are ignorants and backwards, not the brave technologically advanced polish.... yeah

Yeah, cause they still use an outdated and primitive method of payment, so of course they process it quickly, that's what they're used to. Polish people have never used cheques, and probably never will. Nobody is interested in the problems of a handful of old-fashioned Americans.

I have my doubts that any American bank would cash a European cheque within 0-4 days.

I mean, what kind of backwards system charges $30 to cash a cheque?

The American system, that's what - fatwallet.com/forums/finance/814862/

Oh look - the same system charges even $50 to cash a 50 pounds check!

forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=436500

Who's backwards now, boy?

To cash a $35 cheque?

I just spoke to a branch manager at BB&T and now I am waiting for her to call me back with an answer.