Difficulties and challenges of servicing business in banks in Poland

Difficulties and challenges of servicing business in banks in Poland

The banking sector in Poland includes more than 30 commercial banks and 500 co-operative banks, including many international banks and branches of foreign banks. The most well-known banks in Poland are PKO Bank Polski, Bank Pekao, SantanderBankPolska, BNP paribas, mBank, ING Bank Śląski, Bank Millennium, Bank Zachodni WBK, Credit Agricole Bank Polska, CitiHandlowy.
The Polish banking supervision system has a two-tier structure, with the National Bank of Poland (NBP) performing the first-tier function and the Polish Financial Market Supervisory Authority (KNF) performing the second-tier function.
Many banks in Poland provide customers with a wide range of services, including financial support for starting a business in Poland. Banks also offer mobile apps for the convenience of customers in different languages.
Here are some of the most common services:

– Opening current accounts. This is the main type of service provided by banks
– Providing loans for various purposes, including business loans
– Opening debit and credit cards
– Carrying out electronic payments
– Carrying out currency transactions

Before you choose a bank and open an account, we recommend that you enquire in more detail about the terms and conditions of opening an account, service prices and tariffs, which may vary. You should also orientate yourself on the basis of your personal requirements. For example, if you need to systematically withdraw funds abroad, you should focus your choice on banks with more integrated payment systems and the most favourable conditions for transfers.
We recommend banks from the top ten as very reliable.

Opening a current account

Opening a company current account in Poland usually involves the following steps:

1. Selecting a bank: A foreign entrepreneur should choose a bank that serves corporate clients and provides account opening services for companies.
2. Preparation of documents: After registering a company in Poland, the following documents must be prepared to open a bank account:
– Company’s Memorandum of Association.
– Extract from the KRS or power of attorney to manage the account.
– Passport.
3. Visit to the bank: With the founding and identity documents, go to the chosen bank to open an account.
4. Completion of procedures: After submitting all the required documents and going through the verification procedure, the bank opens a corporate account for the company.

It is important to note that the requirements and procedures for opening a bank account may vary from bank to bank and individual circumstances. Therefore, it is recommended to consult with bank representatives directly or contact professional advisors dealing with legal and financial matters in Poland.

What is the bank’s guideline for customer service

Financial systems, including banks, use the principles of customer due diligence. This is necessary to avoid fraud and combat money laundering.
The conditions of modern banking imply the rejection of anonymity of transactions. Financial organisations are fighting for transparency of transactions, and a loan can be taken only on presentation of several documents. In this regard, the abbreviations KYC and AML have appeared in the business turnover.
KYC (Know Your Customer or Know Your Client) is a principle of work of financial institutions, which obliges them to identify the identity of a person before he can carry out transactions. This identification serves many purposes: understanding their customer base, monitoring transactions, mitigating risk, and combating bribery and corruption.
It is up to the services themselves to decide what data to request from the customer, as there is no single standard. For example, cryptocurrency exchanges usually ask for full name, date of birth, mail, phone number, country and address of residence, ID (passport, licence or other document).
Examples of KYC procedures are cash withdrawal limits or verification of a customer’s identity by SMS code.
Thanks to this principle, the bank determines who can become its client and can obtain basic data about the client, monitor and evaluate their transactions, and improve the security of these transactions. KYC procedures are a multi-step operation involving the collection and analysis of customers’ personal information. To verify this data, institutions send the information to multiple independent third-party verifiers. These organisations compare it with official databases to confirm that the information is correct and matches in all respects. The verifiers also match the individual’s information against global criminal databases.
Through these procedures, financial organisations and service providers can determine the risk level of each customer. These customer KYC verification procedures may be carried out more than once by a bank.

AML (Anti-Money Laundering) is the principles of combating money laundering, terrorist financing and weapons of mass destruction. The procedure involves identifying, storing and sharing information about users, their income and transactions between organisations and agencies.
Financial institutions use the AML principle to verify businesses that operate in cash or have assets in cash, hold money in different accounts and in several banks, transfer it abroad, buy futures, options or other cash settlement instruments, invest in securities through brokers or dealers.
AML uses various algorithms to link the KYC database and other sources of information. The link between AML and KYC should be constant and backward-looking. KYC modules can be used to tailor the AML programme to the unique needs of a particular business, clarify customer risk and improve compliance.
IMPORTANT: It should be noted that under no circumstances should a client ignore requests sent to them by a bank, this can be fraught with account closure and suspension of the company’s operations.
Also, each bank has its own list of high-risk countries – you can find this out when contacting the bank. This issue is important when making money transfers. It is necessary to remember that each such transfer will be checked. These lists are different.