Safe Bank

In response to the financial crisis, the European Union and the Member States have launched a major review of the regulatory system and supervision of the financial market. The EU has initiated a number of reforms in the banking sector to increase the resilience of banks and reduce the impact of their potential bankruptcy. For that purpose, the ESFS and the EBU were established, among others. The CMU was also designed, as well as work on the single rulebook started. All those changes, however, concern only the external sphere of credit institutions’ functioning, most of which are too big to fail. Meanwhile, already in 2012, in the?report of the High Level Group chaired by E. Liikanen the need for structural reform of the banking sector in the EU was pointed out, reaching the same inner sphere of its legal and economic being. The proposal of the banking sector structural reform is the first one that directly relates to activities of banks, i.e. the institution responsible for the “breadth and depth” of the latest economic crisis. At the same time it is an important complement to the European Banking Union and therefore should be coordinated with the previously accepted regulations of the European market.

The global financial crisis forced public authorities responsible for maintaining financial stability to resolve the issue of too big to fail institutions. Post-crisis reforms directed at systemically important banks have basically two objectives. The first goal is to increase loss-absorbing capacity of such institutions. The second aim is to ensure mechanisms and tools which will enable the public authorities to conduct orderly resolution of systemically important banks when their viability is threatened, while constraining negative consequences for stability of the financial system and the real economy. The purpose of this article is to present and assess regulatory actions taken to address problems related to systemically important banks. The article tries to define such institutions indicating the main criteria which determine their systemic importance. It also indicates reasons for which such institutions create systemic risk. The main analysis is focused on the key reforms, i.e. the additional capital buffers, the orderly resolution and the TLAC requirements.

In the article, the review of sources of crisis financing for a bank functioning in Poland has been conducted. The author presents the opportunities to gain capital or liquidity both within the private sector (that is on the market or within unions) and from the financial safety net institutions. The survey takes into account the changes that have been introduced by way of the new Act on the Bank Guarantee Fund, Deposit Guarantee Scheme and Resolution. The analysis suggests that the market sources of financing seem to be unlimited, but at the time of crisis their accessibility is considerably limited. The financial safety net sources, however, are of finite size and strongly rationed.

The aim of this article is the analysis of supervisory functions at domestic payment institutions in the area of payment services offered by these institutions. The scope of the supervisory action on licensing was described. Then, the analysis of the annual report of the Financial Ombudsman for the year 2015 day-to-day supervisory instruments were conducted. Moreover, the text presents sanative and sanction instruments that the supervisor may use during the on-site or off-site inspections when the errors in the business activity are disclosed.

Traditionally banks have been considered as conservative institutions which operate in a stable environment. But now the situation is different. Factors such as disintermediation, deregulation, and globalization have changed the banking sector. Nowadays, large diversified financial conglomerates play dominant role in it. This conglomerates behave in many aspects not as traditional banks. The cases of misbehaviour lead to erosion public trust in these institutions. Such situation raises the question of whether banks can be still treated as institutions of the public trust.

The financial education is seen as one of the key macrosocial determinants increasing the level of banking inclusion. Individuals with a good financial knowledge (theoretical and practical) are more able to improve the social position of households, ability to use banking products and consequently to manage and resolve any financial problems or opportunities connected with these products. The aim of the paper is to explore the relationship between the level of financial knowledge (both theoretical and practical), and selected demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, and identify the key factors differentiating the scope of?banking inclusion of people aged 50+. The paper presents the results of a survey carried out on the representative sample of 500 inhabitants of Lodz, aged 50+

The paper includes the comprehensive results of the survey research conducted among the Batory High School students in Warsaw, concerning students’ opinion and attitude towards banks. The analysis of the results considers financial preferences and activity of the participants, as well as their overall knowledge of banks and their functioning. The results, where possible, have been compared to the previous outcome of the nationwide research in this field (the group of people aged 15–24 or the socio-vocational group – students). Based on the analysis, the results achieved by the high school students in terms of their usage of banking services and their knowledge of bank functioning are significantly higher than the results achieved in the nationwide survey. The strong relationship between?personal usage of the banking services and better opinion on banks, as well as great influence of the closest environment (family, friends) on the overall opinion on banks have been confirmed. Respondents interpret the concept of bank safety very narrowly and they make bank shareholders responsible for deposit pay-out in the case of bankruptcy.