Marek Myszka

Why did you decide to join Future Finance Poland and what are your objectives and plans for this initiative?

For several years, PKO Bank Polski has been working to become a ‘technology company with a banking licence. Competing for a leadership position in the CEE financial sector demands a consistent strategy, efforts arising from the need to cooperate with many internal stakeholders and increased investment related to improving innovation and its importance. We have created a market-first solution based on blockchain technology, millions of our clients’ issues are being solved by a virtual assistant (AI), we have one of the best mobile applications in the world, and the next generation will even be able to bank via meta-worlds.

Membership in the Future Finance Poland initiative gives us the opportunity to build a coherent vision for the future of the Polish economy. The aspects related to regulatory dialogue, which aim to assist in the optimisation of the legal framework for the functioning of the financial market or to accelerate innovation, are particularly important to us.

Working groups (Open Finance, Data&AI or Capital Market), which aim to develop specific specialisations of the Polish financial centre, also allow us to confront the different perspectives of stakeholders from Poland and abroad. We can also translate this experience into our own business – by choosing only good practices.

Why invest in Poland? This is one of the key questions when it comes to the FFP initiative. What are your thoughts on that matter?

Nowadays, Poland has all the assets to become a regional gateway for technology investments, especially in the fintech area. It is the largest country in Central and Eastern Europe, the sixth largest economy in the European Union and has a large, absorptive internal market, which provides great development potential within the country. The behaviour of our economy during the last two periods of global turmoil – the financial crisis and during the Covid-19 pandemic – has shown it to be extremely resilient to changes, which reduces the risks associated with investing in Poland.

Poland is also an excellent starting point, for expansion into other European countries. It is located in the heart of Europe, at the intersection of strategic flows and major communication routes, with a well-developed transport and logistics infrastructure. It has a developed, stable and technologically advanced banking sector, which is an excellent catalyst for the commercialisation and scaling of innovative fintech solutions. It also has an extensive financial infrastructure that efficiently handles not only domestic transactions but also international trade and connects economic players across the region. It is complemented by a well-structured ecosystem of support for startups and businesses in the intensive development phase.

At the same time, our country has high-quality human capital, including well-educated specialists, a significant number of whom are technology specialists. Each year, nearly 300,000 people graduate from higher education programmes in Poland. This translates into international success. Poland is the world’s No. 1 in terms of the number of medals in IT Olympiads per million inhabitants. We are therefore ready to provide an adequate supply of specialists in terms of scale and level of qualification, which is crucial for the development of modern innovative solutions.