Poland

Country Name Poland
Country Region Central & Eastern Europe

Banking Environment

Economic Background

Poland voted to join the EU as from May 2004. Economic growth slowed from over 4% p.a. in the late 1990s to just 1% in 2001 and 2002, but it should be 3% in 2003/4. Unemployment at 16-17% is very high, as is the government deficit – well outside the Maastricht guidelines. Poland is likely to have to restrain public expenditure for some years if it wishes to join the EUR, but at the same time it plans to reduce corporation tax from 27% to 19%.

Central Bank

The National Bank of Poland.

Banking System

There are 61 commercial banks and over 600 cooperative banks; many of the latter are short of capital and members of that sector have closed or merged. For example, 400 co-operative banks merged to form Bank Polskej Spoldzielczosci.

80% of banking is under foreign ownership but the largest single bank by assets (PKO Bank Polski) remains state-owned.

Both residents and non-residents can have PLN and foreign currency accounts, and they can attract interest or go into overdraft. However, there are some restrictions – see Exchange Control.

Currency

Polish zloty (PLN)

Cash Management Features

Credit transfers are the dominant payment method. Debit cards are growing in importance but other methods – apart from cash – remain insignificant.

The majority of credit transfers are paper-based and until 2004 are still cleared in paper form.

The Postal Bank – Bank PKO Polski – is the largest bank and the postal payments system is important, running parallel to the private banking system, particularly for handling cash and distributing state benefits.

Zero-balancing is the preferred Liquidity Management technique; even then it can be inhibited by stamp duty. Due to exchange controls there is little market for the PLN currency in financial centres other than the domestic one, and restrictions on holding PLN outside Poland. If currency is to be moved, the payment has to be reported by residents all cases.

Usage of Payment Titles in Polish Payments

From time to time, some customers using MT101s to manage their Polish accounts have complaints about Polish payments which are not executed by Kredytbank Poland. In most cases this is related to the fact that the customer has not used or incorrectly used the Polish payment titles. Payments which are not in compliance with the Polish Foreign Exchange Law are not executed by Kredytbank Poland.

In collaboration with Kredytbank, a description is made below about the usage of payment titles in Polish Payments (Ordering party is a Polish account) for customers who are unfamiliar with these payments.

The Polish Foreign Exchange Law obliges customers to mention the purpose of the payment (Payment Title) in the payment instruction. Payments without proper Payment Title cannot be executed by Kredytbank.

The following payment types are affected :

• Cross border payments (both PLN and foreign currencies)

Domestic payments:

• Between resident and non-resident and vice versa (both PLN and foreign currencies)
• In foreign currency between residents (other than PLN) (1)

The list below includes only the most common examples of the titles (can be used in Polish or English). If the title of your customer’s payment is not indicated on the below list, your customer should describe shortly the purpose of the payment.

Domestic payments in foreign currency between companies are subject to a specific permission of the National bank of Poland.

In each case if the amount of the payment exceeds EUR 10 000,00 (or equivalent in other currencies) the debtor is obliged to present the documents confirming the indicated title.

Poland Legal Entity Types - Mainstream