Apr 11, 2017 at 13:41 // News

Lana Smiley Author

Polish cryptocurrency market welcomes best practices adopted by the government on March 29. Companies in the industry hope it will help Poland get back to being one of the Top-5 markets in the world.

The prospects seem even better than bright. It is always easier to develop an industry when the government supports it. And Polish authorities have definitely decided to promote the digitalization of the country’s financial markets. They even support programs such as “ Paperless, cashless Poland ”, which is led by the Ministries of Economic Development, Digital Affairs, and Health, dedicated to supporting the development of cryptocurrency market. There are 13 Streams within the program, dedicated to eServices, eID, eHealth and blockchain/DLT.

Cryptocurrency Cookbook

What is curious enough is that those practices cannot be called regulations, but rather, recommendations. They are designed to help companies enter the market, not thrust mandatory obligations upon them, making it more difficult. And this is definitely good news for Polish market players.

Mateusz Kowalczyk, CEO at Bitstar.pl , stated to Coinidol.com:

“Regulation is mandatory for new entities to enter market. However releasing set of good practices works the other way. You can start without huge deposit or insurance and gain it later. You can copy paste good practices that big players already learned. There is AML KYC etc. that you can follow but you don’t have to if you can’t afford it yet. It is a ready cookbook were giving for competition to encourage them to stimulate us.”

Still a Lot of Work

While adoption of such practices is definitely encouraging for further development of the crypto industry in Poland, there is still a lot of work to be done before cryptocurrency really flourishes in the country. According to Mateusz Kowalczyk, there are still a lot of difficulties related to “tax, and legislation, though it becomes better and better thanks to cooperation with government.”

Magda Borowik, Executive Director of FinTech Poland Foundation , Advisor to the Minister of Digital Affairs on fintech, DLT and digital currency states that the prospects for the development of the industry “depend on investing money in education and exploration,” outlining the “4E (Enlighten, Educate, Experiment, Explain)” which are necessary to develop and promote fintech in Poland. She stated to coinidol.com:

“Financial Supervision Authority has been working on easing the regulatory constraints for fintech within the framework of Special Task Force for Financial Innovation. The Task Force aims to enable financial innovation growth in Poland. FinTech Poland represents startups and technology providers in the Task Force. The objective is to change or tune existing laws in order for fintech to grow. This will reflect blockchain/DLT opportunity. Ministry of Digital Affairs has some plans on creating dedicated research program for emerging transactional technologies exploration.”