Best option: Mexican BBVA Debit card, or exchange Mexican Pesos, in Poland?

mesahealthco, no responses yet, I suspect because not many people here have relevant experience. Mexican pesos would probably not be commonly seen in Poland, and no real market for dealers to sell them to other people. Banks usually dont do this service to non-customers. I would suggest asking this question at TripAdvisor where there are a lot of Polish locals that help answer questions. If you're not familiar with TripAdvisor, it takes a bit of work to find your way to the right forums to ask questions.

Do they have a local bank that would help? It would make a difference if their debit card is part of one of the international networks like Cirrus, or Plus, etc. I think a back up plan would be to exchange at home for euro, which would be much easier to exchange there.

I was in Poland last month and had good luck buying Polish Zloty [PLN] with USD at a Kantor - change desk - in Warsaw. Yes, Kantors are a thing in Poland. I received 391 PLN for 100 USD - the exchange rate was very close to what I was getting on a credit card for same-day transactions - 3.94.

The kantor I used was Dan Exchange - conveniently located near the Chopin Boutique B&B - Chmielna 7, 00-021 Warszawa, Poland

https://danexchange.pl/ They have a contact form if you wanted to ask a question.

If you do a search on "currency exchange warsaw" you will get hits from a number of such firms.

Of course, the rate may not be as favorable for MXN as it was for USD. But they publish their rates on their website.

I also looked quickly at BBVA bank - one thing I noticed is that they have a Travel Card - it appears to be a prepaid card for foreign travel. So your friend might look into that at their bank. They could also find out exactly what the fees would be to make ATM withdrawals with their debit card in Poland. And avoid Euronet ATMS, which are everywhere - look for a bank-owned ATM.

And to the extent that they can use their debit card to make purchases in Poland, they may not need that much cash anyway.

Do you have currency cards like Revolut in Mexico? Or travel cards that you can load with currency you need? People don't travel with much cash these days. I think you may have a problem with MXN - no idea how much demand there is for Mexican cash in Poland, I have only exchanged euros and you can do that at places called "kantor".