Podsumowanie konferencji „Nowe wyzwania regulacyjne i nadzorcze w obszarze innowacji finansowych”

The Polish Financial Supervision Authority, KNF, has published a summary of the recent conference on „New regulatory and supervisory challenges in the area of financial innovation“ which was held on April 26, 2023. The conference – jointly organized by the KNF’s FinTech Office, the FinTech Poland Foundation, and the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Warsaw – was attended by nearly 500 people, virtually and on site.
While several presentations were held on the „meaning“ of financial innovation, the potential benefits of FinTech to market competition and the competitiveness of the Polish financial market, and on Poland’s future strategy regarding FinTech, the conference included three panel discussions, including the following:
1. a discussion about the current regulatory work on payment services: Issues of concern were the outcomes of the recent review of the Payment Service Directive 2 and possible revisions in an upcoming third version of the Directive.
2. a discussion on deferred payments, particularly – Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) payment schemes: Debates thereby focused on key risks for consumers and businesses in this context (over-indebtness and impact on the financial market), the need for more consumer education, and the various business models that have been developed by payment service providers around BNPL schemes. In same context, the Manager of KNF’s FinTech Department, Mateusz Włodarczyk, presented the KNF’s virtual sandbox and how it may help foster financial innovation and bring more benefits to the market.
3. a discussion about instant payments and access of non-banking entities to the payment infrastructure: The discussion thereby primarily concerned the „directions of changes“ in the Settlement Finality Directive, including the increase of collateral for instant payments and potential transaction costs and the diminishing difference in the operating models of banking and non-banking payment service providers.