Authorities to fine banks for spreads

MAG
opublikowano: 2008-11-20 13:37

Warsaw (Puls Biznesu)  - PLN 500mln (EUR 129.5m) – this is the income of banks raised thanks to the exchange rate spread in the first half of the year. The spread keeps growing. Banks’ clients have no other choice but to pay increasing costs. Malgorzata Krasnodebska-Tomkiel, the head of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection and Stanislaw Kluza, the CEO of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority will thoroughly examine bank practices.

Dom Bank from Getin Holding group had the highest growth rate in its spreads.

“Client costs kept growing because the costs to buy Swiss franc were increasing”, Artur Wiza from Getin Holding said.

“Wider spreads reflect the situation on the intra-banking market where the difference between the buy and sell price grew as well. The question is whether changes for clients were proportional to the ones the bank suffered”, Katarzyna Siwek from Expander wonders.

Marek Juras from DM BZ WBK believes that spreads are banks’ way to earn in face of lower income from credits.

“The margins here were one of the lowest in Europe”, Marcin Mrowiec, Pekao chief economist added.

Expander estimates that spread costs may constitute up to 20 percent of the monthly rate paid by the client.

Spreads are a good source of income for banks but it’s hard to say how much they earn this way. Financial Supervision Authority will investigate this and publish its report soon.

(PLN 1 = EUR 0.259)