Major banks' share prices have gone down on Monday morning after Poland's ruling PiS party chairman Jarosław Kaczyński had threatened to impose more taxes, if they don't offer clients higher interest rates on their deposits.
Shortly after Monday's Warsaw Stock Exchange session opening, shares of Pekao have gone down by 2.35%, PKO BP dropped by 1.56%, mBank - by 1.71%, and Alior Bank by 1.89%.
By 9:10 a.m., WIG-banking index has gone down by 1.75%, while WIG-20 has increased by 0.31%, up to 1.694 points.
Polish banks will be taxed more if they don't offer clients higher interest on their deposits, the leader of Poland's ruling party said on Saturday, intensifying government pressure on the sector to share the benefits of rising rates with savers.
"I do not want to decide for the bankers, but it must be a solid percentage, not at the level of inflation, but enough for people to feel that this money will lose much less value when it is in the bank," Jarosław Kaczyński said during a speech in the eastern city of Białystok.
"If not, then we will have to tax these profits and that's it," Kaczyński added.
Asked about Kaczyński's words on Monday in Polskie Radio 24, Deputy Finance Minister Artur Soboń said: "If we are talking about surplus profits, then I'm not ruling out such a solution. In other words, if we see a situation in which this tool proves effective - in reaction to a situation in which certain economic entities abuse their position ... in order to make surplus profits at the cost of their clients - then we can react".
Poland's main interest rate is at its highest level since 2008, boosting banks' profits but squeezing household budgets in a country where floating rate mortgages are the norm.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has previously criticised banks for not offering savers enough interest, and said in May he would use "persuasion" to make them offer more.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, TVN24 Biznes, PAP
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