Tile on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, which in 2025 is the second highest price list so far the more it grows in the world: the cause is an old acquaintance of the Italian banking world, to be precise Unicredit, which held control of it before selling off all its shares, under pressure from the Polish government itself, and finally exiting in 2019. So let's talk about Bank pecao, which suddenly collapsed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange's WIG index on Friday, August 22nd: the bank's shares lost more than 10% to 190 zloty, returning to early July levels after a rally in the first week of August that had brought the value to an all-time high of 222 zloty. The collapse of Pekao and other banks dragged down the entire Polish stock market, which fell more than 3% in the same session.
Investors were most likely unsettled by the Polish government's intention to tax banks' required reserves at the central bank. Political leaders seemed to immediately regret this move, so much so that Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski denied on X that the government was working on such a measure. The about-face was also confirmed by Reuters: "Poland's Finance Ministry said on Friday it was not working on a previously floated idea to tax interest on banks' required reserves." The banking sector index WIG Banks in Warsaw had in fact fallen by around 8% after the government announced that Poland plans to increase the corporate income tax on banks to 30% in 2026, from the current 19%, to finance increased defense spending. The rate would then be reduced to 26% in 2027 and further to 23% in subsequent years.
Pekao, which is the largest bank in its country, boasts a past in the Italian group UnicreditThe operation was launched by then-CEO Alessandro Profumo, at a time when UniCredit was heavily focused on Eastern Europe, and was later dismantled under Jean-Pierre Mustier, partly under pressure from the Polish government. In 2017, the Italian bank sold 32,8% of Pekao to the Polish insurer PZU and the Polish state fund PFR. The final exit occurred in 2019 with the sale of the remaining 7,3% stake to the holders of certificates issued in December 2016, which were mandatorily converted into Pekao shares.
