Banking sector overview | Banking today and tomorrow | May 2025 niedobry

6 May 2025 | Banking today and tomorrow, Knowledge, News

It will be easier to obtain loans, not only due to lower interest rates. Good news from banks

In the second quarter of 2025, banks plan to maintain their approach of loosening lending criteria for households and SMEs, while tightening them for large companies in the case of short-term loans. According to a cyclical survey by the National Bank of Poland, banks are anticipating an increase in demand for all types of loans, with consumer loans expected to be the most in demand.

Source: Business Insider

A huge transaction. A large bank in Poland is changing owners

Erste Group is set to invest a total of EUR 7 billion to assume control of Santander Bank Polska and its investment fund company. The Austrians will therefore become the bank’s largest shareholder.

Source: Money.pl

Banks oppose bogus law firms. ZBP comments on the opinion of the Advocate General of the CJEU

Consumers should always be aware of the consequences of signing an assignment agreement, according to the Polish Bank Association (ZBP). In its commentary on Wednesday’s opinion of the Court of Justice of the European Union, ZBP suggests eliminating the mass trading of consumer claims by entities specialising in buying these claims from consumers for a fraction of their value.

Source: Business Insider

Banks to close accounts of deceased more efficiently

Banks will be able to close dormant accounts belonging to deceased persons more quickly. They will be able to obtain from the PESEL register not only information on the death of the account holder, but also the date of death, and so will also no longer have to search for data on closed or expired accounts in the distant past. This is provided for in the draft amendment to the Banking Law and the Population Registration Act.

Source: Prawo.pl

In the absence of separate consent, the bank and the BIK must delete the data of former clients who are sole traders

Once the loan has been repaid and the agreement between a bank and a sole trader has expired, the bank will no longer be able to process the sole trader’s personal data, including making it available to the Credit Information Bureau (BIK), for the purpose of assessing creditworthiness or analysing credit risk, without the sole trader’s consent.

Source: Rzeczpospolita

Money transfer frauds on the rise. Social engineering scams predominate

The National Bank of Poland has published a report on fraud in the Polish financial services market in Q4 2024. The document contains statistics on card fraud reported by both clearing agents (e.g. terminal operators) and banks (i.e. card issuers). The report also includes data on fraud involving wire transfers.

Source: Cashless.pl

Deputy Finance Minister on bank lending to the economy

Capital is blood, and banks are the circulatory system of the economy, providing capital to businesses, both working capital and, above all, investment capital, says Jurand Drop, Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Finance.

Source: Bank.pl

Banks have money, but they are not sitting on it

Most Polish companies do not invest because they do not need to, not because of a lack of access to finance. Meanwhile, the PLN 21 billion that banks will allocate to increasing their equity in 2025 will increase their potential to lend to the economy by PLN 118 billion.

Source: Puls Biznesu

European Economic Congress 2025: Banks have capital and are ready to finance Poland’s economic growth

The Polish banking sector, whose profits reached a record high of PLN 42 billion in 2024, has capital and is ready to finance ambitious investments, including via EU reindustrialisation programmes. The problem, however, according to experts, is the lack of stable, long-term investment plans and the reluctance of entrepreneurs to take on debt.

Source: PAP

Banks’ windfall profits are temporary, no justification for additional tax – ZBP

Recently, there have been statements by politicians that the banking sector has extraordinary profits that should be subject to an additional tax. According to Tadeusz Białek, President of the Polish Bank Association, this is a temporary situation and there is no other sector that supports the state to such an extent in terms of taxes. Last year, the financial sector paid over PLN 24 billion to the state budget. Every fourth zloty of corporate income tax paid to the state budget came from banks. The sector contributed over 13.5 billion in CIT, almost 6 billion in bank tax, and paid 3.5 billion in dividends, as banks are 50 % controlled directly or indirectly by the State Treasury.

Source: Strefa Inwestorów

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Latest Knowledge

Banking sector overview | Banking today and tomorrow | October 2026

The National Working Group is developing recommendations on the transition to a new benchmark rate – POLSTR – in agreements with retail clients, announced Tadeusz Białek, President of the Polish Bank Association (Związek Banków Polskich).

Workplace harassment and discrimination: new regulations for employers

The Sejm has passed an amendment to the Labour Code concerning workplace harassment and discrimination. The changes introduce a broader definition of the concept itself, new forms of harassment, clearer definitions of what constitutes, for example, sexual harassment, and new rules governing the handling of such cases, including the reversal of the burden of proof, higher compensation awards, and the jurisdiction of district courts. The provisions will enter into force on 5 November 2026. We examine what will change and how much time remains to adapt company documents, policies, and the organisation as a whole.

ESG Roadmap. How to identify which regulations apply to your business and build a strategy

As we know, ESG in business is a roadmap made up of numerous obligations arising from different regulatory frameworks. That is why the right question is not “how do I meet all the requirements?” but rather “which of them apply to my business?”. This is a crucial distinction. We explain how to correctly diagnose your regulatory profile and build an effective ESG strategy – one that actually works and gives you a competitive edge.

Banking sector overview | Banking today and tomorrow | September 2026

In July, Poles held PLN 1,117.5 billion in current accounts and over PLN 406 billion in fixed-term deposits of up to two years. Household debt rose by PLN 7.6 billion to PLN 869.1 billion. Meanwhile, the value of cash in circulation is already approaching PLN 500 billion.

Announcement of Income Tax Reform

On 19 August, during a press conference, the Prime Minister announced a package of tax changes planned for next year. According to the announcement, the reform is intended, on the one hand, to ease the burden on the middle class and, on the other, to shift a greater fiscal burden onto the wealthiest individuals and the largest companies. We take a look at the proposals included in the announced package and explain what they might mean for taxpayers.

Family foundations and the tax authorities: what draft bill UD447 proposes and why this is not the end of the troubles

Family foundations were intended to provide entrepreneurs with a stable framework for intergenerational wealth management. Yet not even four years have passed since the first such foundations were established, and the rules governing their taxation are set to be changed once again. This is because the scale of interest and the practical problems uncovered have overwhelmed the drafters of the legislation, as best illustrated by the figures – 927 applications for individual tax rulings and 77 opinions issued from the Head of the National Revenue Administration. This does not, however, mean that family foundations are being used on a massive scale for aggressive tax optimisation. A significant proportion of the queries concerned simply how to correctly apply the complex regulations.

Banking today and tomorrow | Financial sector overview | August 2026

Poland’s banking sector has reacted with concern to recent remarks by Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz, the Minister of Development Funds and Regional Policy, who announced plans to put forward a proposal for a further increase in CIT levied on banks. The Minister’s reasoning, however, rests on a flawed conflation of the sector’s liquidity with its profitability, revealing a fundamental misunderstanding of how the banking sector operates and how its financial health is assessed. What is more, it feeds into a worrying trend of replacing substantive debate with simplistic, populist messaging which may be politically appealing but is not underpinned by either facts or economic analysis.

NIS2 and the National Cybersecurity System Act in transport: what you need to do before October 2026

The amended Act on the National Cybersecurity System (UKSC) has been in force since 3 April 2026. For transport sector undertakings, this means a specific compliance timeline, including an obligation to register with the National Cybersecurity System (KSC) registry by 3 October 2026. Failure to do so may result in substantial financial penalties, coupled with the risk of personal liability for senior management. Not every undertaking, however, automatically falls within the scope of the new regime. Read on to find out whether your organisation is affected and what you need to do before the deadline for preparation.

Family foundations: the government has done the maths and presented the bill

Three years. That’s how long we’ve been waiting for what the Council of Ministers had seen in the data from the outset – and has now disclosed in its review of the Family Foundation Act. The document not only diagnoses the problems, but also previews substantial changes to rules that founders and their advisers treated as settled and stable. And therein lies a problem that goes far beyond tax matters. If the rules of the game are changed while the game is being played, there can be neither planning stability nor trust in the law. It is no coincidence that one of the greatest concerns among entrepreneurs considering setting up a foundation is not the level of taxation, but the stability of the legal framework – which today is once again being called into question.

What the new swiss franc act means for banks

We now have a new Act on Special Measures for the Adjudication of Cases Concerning Loan Agreements Denominated in or Indexed to the Swiss Franc. The provisions come into force 14 days after publication. So now is a good time to look at what lies ahead and what banks should be doing today.