Polish Financial Supervision Authority - Polish financial market controller

In today's article, we will take a closer look at the Polish body exercising control over our financial market. Thanks to this institution, investors receive not only reliable information about suspicious entities on the market, but also support in the purely educational and legal areas. This body was established under the Act on Financial Market Supervision of 21 on July 2006.

Specification of the body

The Polish Financial Supervision Authority (abbreviated as KNF) is the central organ of state administration that supervises the entire financial market in the territory of the Republic of Poland. The scope of its functioning, competences and tasks is determined by the content of the above-mentioned Act.

Polish Financial Supervision Authority in accordance with the Act (on supervision of the financial market  Art. 19) is a body without funding from government funds. All expenses related to its operation are covered by the contributions of entities supervised by the KNF.

A brief history of the KNF

Before the PFSA was established, which we have in its current form, several entities completed its tasks. The current scope of activities was broken down into such entities as, above all, the Commission for Banking Supervision, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Insurance and Pension Funds Supervisory Commission.

The oldest of the three entities mentioned above was the Securities and Exchange Commission. Established in 1991, its main tasks included supervising trading and competition in the field of public trading in securities. In addition, it was burdened with the duty to exercise control over commodity exchanges and to ensure universal access to reliable information on the securities market and commodity market.

Almost parallel (from 2002), the Insurance and Pension Funds Supervisory Commission (KNUiFE) has begun to operate. It was to replace the existing Supervisory Authority for Pension Funds and the State. The members of the Polish Securities and Exchange Commission sat on the newly created entity.

In 2006, the PFSA was established pursuant to the Act by taking over the tasks of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Authorities and the composition of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority

The Commission consists of the chairman, two deputy chairpersons and four members. Committee members are strictly designated. They include the minister competent for financial institutions (currently the Minister of Finance) and the minister responsible for social security (minister of labor and social policy) or their representatives. In addition, he is also the President of the National Bank of Poland. It may be the vice-president delegated by him (the president does not have to participate in the committee in person) and a representative of the President of the Republic of Poland. For a five-year term, only the chairman is elected, his deputies are appointed and dismissed at the request of the chairman, by the chairman of the Council of Ministers.

To improve the operation of the commission, specific departments are appointed. The KNF structures include:

• Department of Investment Companies and Capital Market Infrastructure
• Department of Banking Regulations, Payment Institutions and Cooperative Savings and Credit Unions
• Department of Insurance and Pension Licenses
• Department of Investment Funds
• Department of Trade Supervision
• Department of Public Offers and Financial Information
• Department of Bank Licenses, Paying Authorities and Cooperative Savings and Credit Unions
• Department of Commercial and Specialized Banking and Payment Institutions
• Department of Cooperative Banking and Cooperative Savings and Credit Unions
• Customer Protection Department
• Department of Social Communication
• Department of Analysis and International Cooperation
• Department of Banking Inspections, Payment Institutions and Cooperative Savings and Credit Unions
• Department of Insurance Supervision
• Cabinet of the Commission
• law Department
• Department of Human Resource Management
• Department of Administration, Budget and IT
• Multiple Independent Stand for Internal Control
• Plenipotentiary for Protection of Classified Information. Department of Supervision of Pension Investments
• Risk Monitoring Department and Department of Insurance and Pension Inspections.

Tasks and functions of the KNF

The Polish Financial Supervision Authority supervises the banking sector, the capital, insurance and pension market, supervision over payment institutions and payment services offices, electronic money institutions and the co-operative box sector. Its main purpose is to ensure the proper functioning of this market, its stability, security, transparency and confidence in the financial market. The interest of its participants is also important in all of this. The KNF meets its objectives mainly thanks to educational activities, undertaking activities aimed at increasing the competitiveness of entities operating in the field of financial services or amicable settlement of disputes between market participants. In addition, it is to ensure its proper functioning within the legal framework defined by the Act.

The Polish Financial Supervision Authority maintains a public list of warnings, on which it places entities and persons operating on the Polish market in an illegal or grossly violating the binding legal regulations. Forex Club regularly publishes information on new positions from the Forex / CFD / binary options list in the section Messages -> List of warnings.

Penalties imposed by the KNF

Present the list of penalties on the KNF website exceeds the pages of the report over 300. By the end of 2018, around 700 entities have been fined since the commencement of operations by the committee, of which the year 2017 was record-breaking for them. The highest penalty until the XTB was punished was 5,72 million and it concerned PSW Capital SA. Listed earlier the broker was charged PLN 9,9.