Polish banking sector's 2025 net take expected at nominal level similar to 2024 - lobby

"(...) in 2025, banks' profits can be expected to be at a nominal level similar to last year's results. These will be more the result of an increase in banks' balance sheet totals than in the profitability of individual products," ZBP assessed.

"The high bank charges together lead to a very strong effective burden on banks' financial results, a high effective tax rate on income and make it difficult to increase equity capital," it added.

The Polish banking lobby pointed out that although the capital growth is occurring, due to a low-performance environment in earlier years, part of the profits would be used to pay dividends.

"Moreover, in the high inflation environment of recent years it is more difficult to achieve real capital growth. This, in turn, additionally in an environment of increasing regulatory requirements, affects the capital surplus and the possibility of a wider development of lending, especially with higher risks and requiring higher risk weights," ZBP added.

The lobby wrote in the report that interest income can still be expected to be moderately high. However, it will no longer be as high as in 2024.

In early April, ZBP reported that in 2025, according to a simulation of lenders' financial results created within the framework of a report prepared under the analytical-research programme of the Warsaw Banking Institute foundation, Poland's banking sector net profit will likely amount to PLN 40 billion (EUR 9.34 bln) in the baseline scenario against PLN 42 billion (EUR 9.81 bln) in 2024.

On Tuesday, May 6, Poland's central bank NBP reported that the domestic lenders sector saw a PLN 11.7 billion (EUR 2.73 bln) net profit in the first three months of 2025, up by 16.1 percent year on year.

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