Morawiecki speaks about mortgage loan refinancing plans

Poland’s Minister of Finance and Development Mateusz Morawiecki, said on Saturday that he had hope that private banks would agree with the Financial Stability Committee’s (the KSF) recommendation. On Friday, KSF representatives had met with the Deputy Minister of Finance, Leszek Skiba, to discuss the ongoing challenge of re-structuring Swiss Franc-denominated mortgages for Polish home owners who were finding the monthly payments difficult to meet. As a result of the meeting, it was reported that banks and clients should voluntarily agree to loan re-structuring. Morawiecki was speaking in an interview with RMF FM. He stated that he was confident that recent discussions between the Ministry and the KSF would lead to eliminating “abuses [of customers’] rights”, and also to banks lowering monthly mortgage costs by voluntarily re-structuring the loans. “In each of the individual banks is this knowledge [that] if there were any clauses abusing customers’ rights, they should be ruthlessly eradicated and the borrower should receive back, so these judgments should be carried out. I hope that this problem will be lower not just month after month, but also [that it will decrease] by leaps and bounds, [that] banks will join the more robust the discussion, partnership discussions with borrowers,” Morawiecki told the radio station. On Friday, the Committee stated that the statutory conversion of mortgages would not be appropriate, because “it could lead to very significant losses at some banks, in extreme cases, threatening the stability of the domestic financial system.” Restructuring of loans should be, according to the KSF, voluntary and “is particularly justified in the case of borrowers who find themselves in a difficult financial situation at fault on his circumstances.”