On a mission

The financial advisory market in Poland is a young one. The first real company from this sector - Expander - was established in 2000. "There are not many strictly advisory companies in Poland, which provide advice and inform rather than only act as financial intermediaries," PR specialist at financial advisors Open Finance, Krzysztof Olszewski said.

 "We not only sell financial products, but our experts help our clients in planning their personal spendings and in creating their own investment plan. This is different from simply presenting an offer," Olszewski added.

Mortgage loans are the core of the advisory companies' activities. "This is the result of the boom on the real estate market," Olszewski explains. However, the investment sector is becoming an increasingly large part of the business. "It makes up about 20 percent of our activities, but we are focusing more attention on it," the company's expert Maciej Kossowski said. Open Finance also focuses on investing. "Our last campaign was entirely dedicated to investments. We wanted people to know that we can [also] help them invest their savings," Olszewski underlined.

Growing interest

Olszewski notes that the strong results that investment funds posted last year has sparked a  growing interest in these funds among Poles. "Poles are becoming more and more conscious, they want to invest and save on the capital market, they want their money to earn for them," Olszewski said.

Expander's Kossowski stresses that people that come to the company looking for advice are of different age groups and financial backgrounds. However, one group stands out as much larger than the others. "The core of our clients are between the age of 25-40, live in a big city and have above average earnings," he explained.

"They are financially conscious, that is, they want to do something with their money and have the courage to invest it," he added. Kossowski also added that most of these people, among whom are doctors and journalists, often do not have much knowledge about ways of investing and saving their funds.

Sending a message

"We are educating them about different the possibilities of allocating their finances," Kossowski said. Open Finance's clients are also big-city dwellers from the middle and upper-middle classes, but the company is trying to reach other groups as well.

"Last year we held a series of nine conferences about the possible ways of investing and in what to invest," Olszewski explained. He added that the company is present in different media, even the local newspapers. "We want to reach all clients, including those not from the middle class," Olszewski said.

"Many of these people do not realize that savings can be invested and do not necessarily need to be consumed or put in a bank account," he added.

So apart from choosing and selling the products that best fit the given clients' needs, advisory companies see themselves as on an educational mission. "We are sending the message to our clients that it is worth it to systematically save a part of the income and concentrate on long-term possibilities and needs," said Kossowski.