WARSAW: Poland's commercial banks expect only a slight rise in profits in 2014, as the effect of accelerating economic growth is likely to be offset by record-low interest rates, the Polish financial regulator KNF said on Friday.
A poll of all Polish commercial banks conducted by the watchdog found that expect their aggregated net profit to rise by 1.1 percent to 14.626 billion zlotys ($4.9 billion) this year, KNF said on its website. Polish banks expect their lending to companies will rise by 18.4 percent this year, while credit granted to households will rise by 5 percent.
Economic growth in Poland, the sixth largest European Union country of 38 million people, has outperformed that of the euro zone since 2008 and is seen exceeding 3 percent in 2014.
Poland's banking sector, 70-percent owned by foreign players, avoided the wider bad debt problems related to the financial crisis still dogging many European counterparts as the country's watchdog shielded the industry with strict regulations.
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