Since credit cards first began to be issued here six years ago, Poles have been applying for the new financial instrument in record numbers. Visa International, the dominant force in the Polish market, is experiencing growth of nearly 200 percent a year in cardholders. This follows a whopping 800 percent growth in Hungary last year. It's part of a Polish boom in all types of consumer credits in the past year or so. Consumer credit has mushroomed by 90 percent as more type of loans become available.
Young people can now buy their first car on credit with little or no down payment.
More commonly they're secured by customers' deposits in the bank, or are actually debit cards, where the amount charged is taken out of the customer's bank account. Banks in the former Communist countries have moved cautiously in issuing true credit cards because consumer loans are such a novelty in these long-time cash economies. Banks were not sure that consumers could handle credit responsibly. I don't know if people are ready to properly use a real credit card because you have to be very careful, and as you know, we are not a very rich society. Jurek and Danuta Zaporski, owners of the Mozaika Cafe in downtown Warsaw, know the credit card experience from both sides.