Polish banks' credit spreads seen falling, reaching EU average level - banking lobby
The current lending capacity of the Polish banking sector is estimated at over PLN 300 billion (EUR 71.73 bln). With low high interest rates, banks' credit spreads have been falling and at the end of January, the average spread for housing loans was 1.67 percent, at the level of the EU average. Polish lenders will pay a total of approximately PLN 21.1 billion (EUR 5.05 bln) in dividends from 2024 profit, the head of Polish banking lobby ZBP Tadeusz Bialek told a conference in Warsaw.
Bialek reported that the introduction of the bank tax in 2016 significantly reduced the real value of credit supply to the non-financial sector.
"As a consequence of the bank tax, between 2017 and 2024, PLN 700 billion of credit, which could have fed into the real sphere of the economy in real terms, supporting the financing of investments and building innovation, did not reach the economy," the head of Polish banking lobby told the Banking Forum conference in Warsaw.
According to ZBP's data, Poland's banking sector's financial result in 2024 totalled PLN 42.18 billion (EUR 10.08 bln), of which PLN 21.08 billion (EUR 5.04 bln) will go to increase equity and PLN 21.1 billion (EUR 5.045 bln) to dividends.
The Polish banking lobby reported that at the end of January 2025, the average spread for housing loans in Poland was 1.67 percent (at an average interest rate of 7.42 percent), while in Germany it reached 2.07 percent and in the Netherlands 1.94 percent.
According to ZBP's data, although interest rates in Poland remain high, the yield of the Polish banking sector remains moderate compared to other European countries and is even low compared to other sectors of the domestic economy.
The lobby reported that in 2024, the return on equity in the Polish banking sector was 14.7 percent, which ranks it behind banking sectors from countries such as Croatia (14.8 percent), Estonia (15 percent), Lithuania (16.3 percent) and Latvia (17.3 percent), among others.
It was added that last year, the Polish banking sector contributed more than PLN 24.16 billion (EUR 5.78 bln) to the state budget in the form of taxes and other public levies.
CIT receipts alone amounted to PLN 13.42 billion (EUR 3.21 bln0, which means that almost every fourth PLN of this tax in the State budget came from the banking sector. Another PLN 5.8 billion (EUR 1.4 bln) flew into the budget from the part of the bank tax paid by lenders.
seb/ ao/
