Bank heads grilled over fee raises

The executives of Polish lenders faced questions from Polish politicians on Tuesday concerning the raising of loan margins and service fees in connection with the new bank tax. "I didn't call banks' CEOs for a telling off. It is about learning why they have raised their fees and margins," said Andrzej Jaworski, head of the public finance commission. Wojciech Kwaśniak, deputy chair of financial watchdog KNF said that banks may have difficulties with shifting costs of the new tax onto clients due to "high competition on the market." Nonetheless, he quoted a KNF survey, which showed 15 out of 20 banks increased margins or interest on housing loans in Q4'15 or Q1'16 , in the case of consumer loans it was 12 banks, while in the case of loans for SMEs it was 14. Zbigniew Jagiełło, head of state-controled bank PKO BP said that since 2010 the lender has revised  its provisions and fees on an annual basis. He highlighted that due to a growing number of clients,  fees per individual client has been diminishing. PKO BP, which grants every fourth mortgage loan in Poland, has one of the lowest margins on housing loans, Jagiełło also said.