Weekly review of news from the finance and banking sectors

The following is an overview of the most important news from the finance, banking and insurance sectors from December 27-30.

BANK MARKET

E-payments: The Poland Without Cash Foundation will extend the financing period for payment terminals and applications for mobile devices (softposs) to 12 months and will cover the financial costs of handling transactions up to PLN 100,000 turnover per terminal, the Foundation said. The change will take effect on January 1, 2023.

WIRON: WSE Benchmark has recalculated the historical values of the WIRON index and the indexes belonging to the WIRON Family of Composite Indexes before the index is applied to financial contracts and instruments, the exchange said.

Preferential housing credit: The Ministry of Development and Technology (MoD) has agreed with the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) that the Commission will work on loosening Recommendation S when examining creditworthiness. It is likely that the buffer for those benefiting from the government housing program will be reduced to 2.5 percentage points from 5 percentage points currently, which will translate into a wider circle of potential beneficiaries of the program, according to Development and Technology Minister Waldemar Buda.

Preferential housing loan: Up to about 40,000 loans a year will be granted under the preferential 2% housing loan program, analysts at PKO Bank Polski estimate.

Microenterprise loans: Banks granted micro-entrepreneurs in November this year. 11.2 thousand loans (down 9.5% y/y) with a total value of PLN 1.41 billion (down 21.4% y/y), according to the Credit Information Bureau (BIK). In the 11-month period, the number of loans granted to microenterprises amounted to 125.3 thousand (-12.7%), and their value reached PLN 18.04 billion (-11.4%).

INSURANCE MARKET

Motor insurance: Prices of motor liability policies fell by an average of 5% y/y in November 2022, while autocasco became less than 7% more expensive than in January, according to analysis by CUK Ubezpieczenia.

CAPITAL MARKET

WSE: The Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE) has closed a deal to buy 65.03% of the shares of Armenia Securities Exchange (AMX), the WSE said. The total value of the transaction is 873.74 million drams (about PLN 9.6 million), the WSE has paid the first tranche of the price (PLN 5.5 million), the second tranche (PLN 4.1 million) will be payable subject to the completion of all proceedings to which AMX is a party. The WSE signed an agreement to acquire a 65% stake in Armenia Securities Exchange for PLN 9.6 million in June this year.

OTHER FINANCIAL SERVICES

Deferred payments: The buy now and pay later (BNPL) loan sector provided financing worth PLN 197.7 million in October (+1.6% m/m and 159.3% y/y, according to data from the Financial Market Development Foundation (FRRF) and CRIF. In November, the traditional lending sector provided financing worth PLN 1.38 billion.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

mBank: The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has ordered mBank to maintain, on a consolidated basis, own funds to cover the additional capital requirement to cover risks arising from mortgage-backed foreign currency loans and advances to households at 1.76 percentage points above the total capital ratio, the bank said. To date, the bank on a consolidated basis has maintained own funds to cover the additional capital requirement at 2.12 pct.

Santander BP: The Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) has recommended that Santander Bank Polska maintain own funds to cover the additional capital requirement to hedge risks arising from mortgage-backed foreign currency loans and advances to households, at a consolidated level of 0.016 percentage points, for the total capital ratio, the bank said.

Bank Millennium: The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has ordered Bank Millennium to comply with an additional capital requirement to hedge risks arising from mortgage-backed foreign currency loans and advances to households (P2R buffer), the bank said. The new requirement at the consolidated level was set at 1.94 percentage points above the total capital ratio.

Allianz: The merger of PTE Allianz Polska and Aviva PTE Aviva Santander was registered with the National Court Register. From now on, the merged entity operates under the name PTE Allianz Polska, the company reported.

Santander BP: Increased the value of the estimate of the amount of costs from the introduced solutions for the so-called "credit vacations," as a result of the need to adjust previous assumptions to the data currently held by the bank, including the assumption that approximately 63.8% of eligible customers will benefit from the credit vacations, the bank stated. On this account, the bank's pre-tax profit in Q4 2022 will be charged with an amount of approx. PLN 33 million.

mPay: It will launch a B2B offering, and has signed a letter of intent to supply mPay with technology to support services that enable access to account information (AIS - Account Information Service) and initiation of payments (PIS - Payment Initiation Service), the company reported.

mBank: The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has ordered mBank to maintain on a stand-alone basis own funds to cover the additional capital requirement to cover risks arising from mortgage-backed foreign currency loans and advances to households at 2.03 percentage points above the total capital ratio, the bank said.

BOŚ: The Financial Supervision Commission recommended that Bank for Environmental Protection (BOŚ) maintain own funds to cover an additional capital charge (P2G) of 1.44 percentage points at the individual level and 1.34 percentage points at the consolidated level, the bank said.

Millennium: The Financial Supervision Commission recommended that Bank Millennium maintain own funds to cover the additional capital charge (P2G) of 1.72 percentage points and 1, 75 percentage points at the consolidated level, the bank said.

Alior Bank: The Financial Supervision Commission has recommended that Alior Bank maintain own funds to cover the additional capital charge (P2G) at 0.15 percentage points above the total capital ratio, both at the stand-alone and consolidated levels, the bank said.

Bank Handlowy: The Financial Supervision Commission recommended that Bank Handlowy maintain own funds to cover the additional capital charge (P2G) at a level of 0.11 percentage points above the value of the total capital ratio at both the stand-alone and consolidated levels, the bank said.

Bank Pocztowy: The Financial Supervision Commission recommended that Bank Pocztowy maintain own funds to cover the additional capital charge (P2G) at a level of 1.68 percentage points above the value of the total capital ratio, the bank said.

Bank Pekao: The Financial Supervision Commission recommended that Bank Polska Kasa Opieki (Pekao) maintain own funds to cover an additional capital charge (P2G) of 0.43 percentage points at the stand-alone level and 0.42 percentage points at the consolidated level, the bank said.

BNP Paribas BP: The Financial Supervision Authority has recommended that BNP Paribas Bank Polska maintain own funds to cover the additional capital charge (P2G) of 0.80 percentage points at the stand-alone level and 0.77 percentage points at the consolidated level, the bank said.

Santander BP: The Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) recommended that Santander Bank Polska maintain own funds to cover the additional capital charge (P2G) of 0.26 percentage points at the stand-alone level and 0.23 percentage points at the consolidated level, the bank said.

PKO BP: The Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) recommended that PKO Bank Polski maintain own funds to cover the additional capital charge (P2G) of 0.72 percentage points at the stand-alone level and 0.66 percentage points at the consolidated level, the bank said.

ING BSK: The Financial Supervision Commission (FSC) recommended that ING Bank Slaski maintain own funds to cover an additional capital charge (P2G) of 0.52 percentage points at the stand-alone level and 0.50 percentage points at the consolidated level, the bank said.

Santander TFI: The supervisory board has appointed Szymon Borawski-Reks to the board of directors, effective January 1, 2023. His activities as a member of the board of directors, chief investment officer will be focused in the area of investments. In addition, upon approval by the FSC, Borawski-Reks will assume responsibilities for overseeing the Investment Department and the investment decision-making process. Szymon Borawski-Reks has been with Santander TFI since May 2003, and took over as Investment Director in July 2016.