WARSAW: Polish banks hope to tame a bill on FX-mortgage conversion, in part by pressing lawmakers to add income levels to program eligibility rules, reducing the size of qualifying homes and spreading program roll-out over three years, the chief of the nation’s banker lobby ZBP said.
The ZBP would also write in elements “requiring the central bank NBP to take action towards enabling banks to achieve the bill’s terms” and extend the deadline by which banks must act on a client demand for loan conversion to a full 90 days.
The Polish government has drafted legislation allowing select homeowners with FX-denominated mortgages to convert their loans to zloty. Last minute amendments to that bill radically altered how banks and clients would split the FX loss (now 90-10 bank-client) and expanded program eligibility to include larger homes.
“It just so happens that franc loans were offered chiefly to the wealthiest set of borrowers,” ZBP president Krzysztof Pietraszkiewicz told PAP Polish news agency of program eligibility. “The beneficiaries of the bill passed by the Sejm lower house could chiefly be the wealthiest individuals.”
The move by the lower house to increase the maximum size of qualifying real estate might also have been excessive, Pietraszkiewicz said. The initial bill had allowed FX conversion on loans financing apartments to 75 square meters and houses to 100 m2. Last minute amendments increased those sums to 100 m2 and 150 m2 respectively. Pietraszkiewicz cites a nationwide average apartment floorspace at 73 m2.
