Nearly two-thirds of Poles would allow working illegally in order to avoid collecting debts from their salaries, according to a study by the Association of Financial Companies in Poland (ZPF). In total, almost half of us give consent to unethical financial behavior.

Prepared by ZPF in cooperation with BIG InfoMonitor, Intrum, Ikano Bank and Smartney, Index for the Acceptance of Unethical Financial Behavior in 2020 amounted to 46.2 percent. This means that nearly half of Poles are willing to justify various types of deviations from applicable legal norms or ethical standards in finance. Both in 2019 and in previous years, the value of this index amounted to approx. 40 percent, which means that social consent to unethical behavior in the sphere of finance in Poland has increased.

Among the analyzed behaviors, the greatest social acceptance may be expected to work illegally in order to avoid collecting debts from the salary (66.5 percent of the respondents). Most of us also allow such practices as transferring property to the family to escape from creditors (59.1 percent), changing the bank account to avoid bailiffs (54.2 percent), paying in cash without an account to avoid VAT (53.5 percent), and even concealing information that would make taking a loan impossible (52.9 percent).

"Unfortunately, consumers are often unaware that, for example, banks carefully check their history and creditworthiness to make sure that a given person will be able to pay off the liability. If we conceal certain facts from the lender, we may incur financial problems, which we will have to deal with for many years,” Agnieszka Surowiec from Intrum Sp. z o.o., member of the ZPF Ethics Committee, warned.

(300gospodarka)