According to an interview in Polish daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna with, Head of PFSA Andrzej Jakubiak, the regulator sees no room for further major mergers in the Polish banking sector. According to Jakubiak, PFSA sees the market concentration as optimal currently, as creating large banking groups could raise problems in case a large bank starts having trouble. According to Jakubiak, PFSA would look very closely to any merger that would result in a creation of a bank controlling 3-4% of the banking sector assets, and even more carefully if it's more than 5%. PFSA is currently aware of one listed bank being put up for sale, a ranking 11- 20 in the sector.
Our view:
We would not expect it to be a major obstacle unless the merger entity would have breached any antimonopoly thresholds. We expect the news to have a neutral trading impact.