[rcbdev]

There is a general phenomenon that countries who pioneer a concept or technology and start to deploy an earlier iteration at great scale seem to stick with the older version while younger countries "skip" ahead. Good example might be the magnet stripe card payments or check books common in the US but almost never used in Western Europe anymore.

I suspect Poland's precarious positions in the 19th century might have affected its development of central banking and currency in such a way as to make society less "stuck in its ways".