The Polish authorities have long taken a bold approach to
restructuring the banking sector - a major national liability in
the early 1990s with most (former state) banks brim full of
abysmal, underperforming loans to abysmal, underperforming
corporates.
Foreign banks seeking a presence were told to take over these
banks one-by-one to gain a local banking licence. The great Polish
banking sell-off, which started in 1994, has continued apace ever
since. But what seemed to be an endless stream of opportunities has
in the past few months dried up. The seats in this bankers' version
of musical chairs, with so many now occupied, suddenly got scarce.
How were players of the calibre of Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank and
Citibank left scrapping for a seat? Partly because of a failure to
act when there were more opportunities. During 1999 both
Commerzbank and Deutsche Bank finally started to develop aggressive
local plans while at the same time...
