Market infrastructure - Poland
Institutions and organisation
Warsaw Stock Exchange (www.gpw.com.pl)
The WSE, the sole stock exchange in Poland, was re-established in 1991 and is a full member of the Federation of Stock Exchanges (FESE).
The electronic trading platform of the Stock Exchange, called UTP (system used by NYSE Euronext), is based on two trading markets: continuous trading and two-fixed prices session.
Since the transactional unit is one share, one trade order placed with a local broker can be executed on the market in many individual lots and at different prices.
Any company that seeks to be listed on the WSE must be admitted first to public trading by the Polish Financial Supervision Authority and then to WSE trading by the WSE Management Board.
Traded instruments at the WSE are: equities, subscription rights, rights to trading in equities, treasury bonds, corporate bonds and derivatives.
Note: T-bills are not traded on the WSE. T-bonds are partially traded on the WSE.
CSD - National Depository for Securities (KDPW) (www.kdpw.com.pl)
The KDPW is the sole and mandatory Polish Central Securities Depository for securities admitted to public trading (that is, equities, T-bonds, corporate/municipal/convertible bonds, derivatives).
The KDPW is owned by the State Treasury, WSE and NBP, with equal stakes representing 7,000 shares each.
The KDPW uses a settlement system module called COMPARISON, which enables local brokers and custodians to settle a trade order without the need to settle all separate executions. The market is fully dematerialised.
CCP: On 1 July 2011, the clearing house functions were taken over by the newly established KDPW_CCP. The CCP is responsible for clearing transactions and for the maintenance of the guarantee system. The KDPW_CCP is fully owned by the KDPW.
Central Bank - National Bank of Poland (NBP) (www.nbp.pl)
The Central Register of T-bills is maintained at the NBP, which is the mandatory Polish Depository for Treasury Bills.
Regulatory structure
- National Bank of Poland (NBP)
The NBP is governed by the Act on National Bank of Poland and supervised by the Polish Parliament. The Polish Financial Supervision Authority (PFSA) (www.knf.gov.pl/en)
The PFSA was established in 2006 and took over the powers of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Insurance and Pension Funds Supervisory Commission and the Commission for Banking Supervision.
The PFSA is the central body of the government of the financial markets and is responsible for protecting investors and overseeing trading. The President of the Council of Ministers supervises the PFSA's activities.The most important responsibilities of the PFSA are the capital markets, banking sector, insurance, pension scheme supervision, complementary supervision of financial conglomerates whereof the supervised entities constitute the part and electronic money institutions supervision.
- General Inspector of Financial Information (GIFI) (www.mofnet.gov.pl)
GIFI is responsible for supervising Anti-Money Laundering activities on the Polish market. The GIFI reports to the Minister of Finance and performs his duties with the assistance of an organisational unit created especially for that purpose within the Ministry of Finance.