<b>Foreigners buy up Poland’s banks</b>
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BANKING

<b>Foreigners buy up Poland’s banks</b>

Headline: Foreigners buy up Poland’s banks
Source: Euromoney
Date: September 2000
Author: Ronan Lyons

Poland suffered a dramatic bank collapse earlier this year and non-performing loans are building up on the balance sheets of many survivors. But there’s little need to panic. Poland has sold its banking system to foreign entrants attracted by the country’s growth potential. Lots of Poles don’t like what has happened. But it may be the model for the rest of the region. Ronan Lyons reports

       

In May this year Piotr Bykowski, controlling shareholder in Poland’s Bank Staropolski, tried to escape from prosecutors by jumping from the second-story window of a Poznan court building, breaking an arm and leg and injuring his spine in the process. His bank collapsed with a capital asset ratio of minus 238%, leaving 150,000 bilked depositors in the lap of the Polish Bank Guarantee Fund.

The remarkable thing was that the debacle caused barely a shudder in the Polish banking system.

For so complete has the carve-up of Poland’s banking spoils been by foreign investors that the country’s banking system is effectively the preserve of international blue-chip banks.











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