Financial Sector Under the Pressure of the New Reality
A decade ago, the banking sector was among Europe’s leaders in terms of profitability. Today, this status is long gone, due to the regulations introduced in recent years that capped profitability and the legacy of foreign currency mortgages that have not found a systemic solution. When interest rates began to rise, opening a path to higher yields, the Prime Minister said they were ‘unfair’.
Profit levels are expected to decline,” says Leszek Skiba, CEO of Bank Pekao, responding to a question about the impact of the government’s proposals to improve the situation of bank customers. Bank Pekao is the second-largest bank on the Polish market. Its main owners are PZU, a state-controlled and the largest insurer in Poland, and the Polish Development Fund, a state-owned development vehicle that has played a major role in fighting the economic consequences of the pandemic. “This is why stock prices of banks have been falling recently on the Warsaw Stock Exchange: everyone knows that profits should decrease,” echoes the Deputy CEO of one of the largest banks with foreign capital.
The WIG-Banks industry index has lost 30% since the start of the year (as of 6 May 2022). WIG20, the main WSE index, has fallen by nearly 24% during the same period, mostly because of banking stocks (in dollar terms, the decline of WIG20 is approx. 30% due to the depreciation of the zloty against the US dollar).
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