Jastrzębski (KNF): Society is rich. The risk should be re -entitled

The chairman of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority, Jacek Jastrzębski, estimated that the level of savings in Poland is still lower than in the most developed EU economies, but is significantly growing, and therefore the field for development by investment products is also growing.

“This means that we can look to the future with optimism,” said Jacek Jastrzębski during the speech of the 19th Funds summary forum organized by the Chamber of Funds and Asset Managing.

During his speech, the Chairman of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority raised the issues of education, investor protection, deregulation and competition.

In the case of education, he indicated that the issue of investors should not be appreciated.

“Sometimes the financial market is tended to look at investors as unrelated, making irrational decisions. I listened to the presentation about investment preferences with great interest today. There is nothing that would be fundamentally irrational,” he said.

“Customers may not be so afraid of the risk of investment so much. They are afraid that they will not necessarily be treated optimally by an intermediary on the financial market,” he added.

He assessed that in the consumer protection model we went very far in the direction of information duties.

“We think that if we tell the client everything, he will make an optimal decision. Unfortunately, this is not true,” said Jastrzębski.

He noted that the risk should be let in the capital marketbecause if it is completely “pushed”, then all asset classes will be razed.

“This, of course, does not apply to the risk associated with improper treatment of the customer or the manner of operation of the market in which these assets are purchased,” he said.

He added that this is also important in the context that the genesis of financial market regulation is mainly associated with financial crises and painful experiences related to irregularities on the financial market.

“The genesis of these regulations affects the approach to regulation. Therefore, we look a little differently at the deregulation understood as allowing the risk to the market, engaging in investment projects with increased risk, and differently we look at deregulation in such areas where there was painful experiences, not necessarily related to the nature of the assets, only with business practices,” he said.

Jacek Jastrzębski also touched on the thread of competition in his speech.

“During the forum, the spirit of competition between banking and non -bank TFI was very floating. I have the impression that at the end of the last debate the conclusion was, however, that such a model of semi -open architecture can be developed, where without a conflict of interests, customers will also be offered to customers from outside the banking group,” he said.

“I hope that this consensus will be found. I will immediately say that solutions such as: prohibit TFI having banks or introduce regulations that order the sale of 50 % of non -bank funds, seem unrealistic to me and would constitute a very far -reaching interference in the functioning of the market” – he added.

In his opinion, such an open architecture model should be developed so that it is with the maximum benefit for the client.

Jacek Jastrzębski pointed out that one should not forget that new players are appearing on the market who are attractive to new customers.

“There are also entities operating on foreign licenses, which also have an attractive investment offer. There is also competition from an unregulated market, which for many reasons offers a lower level of security for clients. As supervision, we feel the need to support our market regulated in competition with an unregulated sector. We think that this is better for everyone. Being an regulated entity is also a kind of act,” he said.

“My appeal, therefore, is so that we don't focus so much on the competition for this piece of cake, which is ours in total, but that we would make sure that the first new players do not eat this cake, and secondly – to expand it as far as possible” – added the chairman of the KNF. (PAP Biznes)

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