Poland - Banks under scrutiny

Misleading advertising of a deposit account and the use of abusive clauses have been questioned by the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection on the banking services market. Seven banks have recently learnt that such practices are prohibited.

The Office regularly monitors the financial services market, checking, inter alia, whether agreements and regulations contain abusive clauses and advertisements provide true information about the offered products and services. Unfortunately, undertakings often fail to remeber this. Consequently to the Office's acitivity on the financial market, in the last eight months, eight decisions regarding seven banks, namely: Alior, Bank Przemysłowo-Handlowy, Bank Gospodarki Żywnościowej, Bank Ochrony Środowiska, Getin Noble Bank, GE Money Bank and Sygma Banque Societe Anonyme (two decisions) have been issued. Moreover, the Office has brought an action to the court to recognise contractual clauses used by Bank Ochrony Środowiska as abusive.

Practices challenged by the Office include, inter alia:

Misleading advertising

Free e-account as a gift, You'll get more, 8% - such were the slogans used by Getin Noble Bank to encourage customers to open a deposit account. However, the bank failed to inform them about all conditions. In October 2009, the President of UOKiK initiated proceedings regarding the suspicion of misleading advertising. UOKiK's charges related to the package products campaign conducted from January to February 2009, encouraging to open a deposit account and an online account. According to the information presented in the advertisement, interest rate on the deposit was 8% per annum and the e-account was a free gift.

Information gathered by the Office in the course of the proceedings revealed that in fact the account was not an additional gift to the deposit. In the event when less than the minimum amount of PLN 1,000 was kept on the account, the bank deducted commission 1% of the deposit amount.

The President of UOKiK imposed on Getin Noble Bank a fine amounting to PLN 755,631 for misleading consumers. The decision is final. The bank has paid the fine.

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