PKO Bank Polski’s net profit in 2026 will fall from its record 2025 level. The main reason is an increase in the effective corporate income tax (CIT) rate from 19 percent to 30 percent. Lower interest rates will put pressure on the net interest margin, but the bank expects partial compensation from higher business volumes and lower provisions for Swiss franc mortgage risk.
The bank does not publish forecasts for net interest margin (NIM) or net profit for future periods. However, it identifies the factors that will influence these indicators in the coming quarters.
A lower interest rate environment negatively affects NIM. In 2025, the Monetary Policy Council cut rates by a total of 175 basis points, and a further reduction of 25 basis points took place in 2026.
– The negative impact of this factor will be significantly offset by growth in business volumes, further optimisation of the deposit base cost, and balance-sheet management actions, including an appropriate structure of the securities portfolio, fixed or periodically fixed-rate loans, and hedging instruments – says the PKO BP press office.
Among the management actions, the bank lists a suitable mix of securities, loans with fixed or periodically fixed interest rates, and hedging instruments.
CIT at 30 percent
Regarding net profit in 2026, the bank points to two opposing factors. On the cost side, the higher effective CIT rate resulting from the increase from 19 to 30 percent is a burden.
On the positive side, the bank expects lower provisions for legal risk related to Swiss franc mortgages compared to 2025. In addition, a further increase in fee and commission income is anticipated.
– We assume a lower level of provisions for legal risk than in 2025, as well as further growth in fee and commission income, supported by the increasing scale of operations and continued funding of strategic investment initiatives – explains the PKO BP press office.
In 2025, the bank set aside PLN 4.4 billion in provisions for legal risk on foreign currency housing loans. The bank currently observes a decline in the number of court cases and an increase in the number of settlements reached. Consequently, the level of provisions estimated to be created in 2026 will be lower than in the previous year.
Allegro Klik Reaches 150,000 Users in Two Months
PKO BP is developing its partnership with the Allegro platform under the KLIK solution. The bank discloses that within just two months, the tool reached 150,000 unique users.
– This means that it is one of the most popular implementations of a new payment method on the platform – says the PKO BP press office.
The bank is working on launching a process within Allegro Klik to open a PKO Bank Polski account quickly without leaving the partner’s service.
Partnership with Żappka Pay and the Kropka App
On 16 April 2026, PKO Bank Polski announced a strategic cooperation with Żappka Pay, part of the Żabka Group. The first step is a consumer finance offer available in the Żappka app: a card with a limit and the option to defer payment, enabling purchases in any store that accepts Visa cards. The partners are first testing the solution in the Family & Friends programme, and the offer will be made available to Żabka app users later in 2026.
At the same time, the bank announces the launch of the Kropka app.
– Kropka is not a typical banking project, but an interesting, innovative solution and business model. Through it, we want to acquire users, and ultimately new customers for PKO Bank Polski – says the PKO BP press office.
The bank is holding talks with many potential ecosystem partners, but does not disclose details at this stage. The general principle is to make the bank’s products and services available where customers make daily transactions and purchases.
Artificial Intelligence in Production Use
PKO Bank Polski intensively uses artificial intelligence in its daily operations. Nearly 1,400 developers use an AI assistant that helps write code, fix bugs and create test scenarios.
More than 16,000 employees use the szukAI search engine, which quickly finds information in the bank’s internal documents. In subsequent stages, the bank plans to expand this solution towards a bank knowledge assistant – available in a chat version and embedded directly in the tools employees use daily.
10,000 employees use MS Copilot based on the GPT-5 model, and soon all employees will have access to it. The bank has also deployed a tool combining OCR technology and a generative language model, which turns scanned documents into editable versions and allows questions to be asked about their content.
PKO Bank Polski has handled nearly 90 million conversations via bots and over one million hours of voicebot conversations. The bank is preparing to change its bot platform to further improve dialogue quality, better context management, and easier integration of bots with banking systems and generative AI‑based solutions.
A key element of PKO Bank Polski’s AI industrialisation strategy is the development of AI Gateway. This is a central banking platform enabling secure and regulation‑compliant use of generative models and classical machine learning models across the organisation. The bank already has initial solutions serving as an AI Gateway, supporting rapid and controlled deployment of market‑based AI solutions.
– Ultimately, AI Gateway will enable rapid implementation of new AI solutions while maintaining the highest standards of security, governance and compliance with supervisory requirements – says the PKO BP press office.
Development of Polish Open Source
The bank is engaged in the development of the Polish open source community and natural language processing (NLP) technologies in the Polish language. Together with the Information Processing Centre – National Research Institute (OPI), the bank created the RoBERTa 8k model, available on the Hugging Face platform. The model has been downloaded more than 400,000 times. It can analyse documents up to 15 A4 pages long. It was also used to create the next generation of the Sójka (Bielik Guard) tool, which detects hate speech and other toxic content on the internet.
The bank emphasises that it is an attractive workplace for IT experts, including AI specialists.
– The scale and complexity of PKO Bank Polski mean we have challenges that are not found in many other organisations, certainly not of this scale – declares the PKO BP press office.
The bank needs people who can translate their experience in classical software development into the ability to design and control solutions created with artificial intelligence tools.
Expansion into European Markets
The development of a network of foreign corporate branches and representative offices is PKO Bank Polski’s response to the needs of Polish enterprises that are successively increasing their presence in foreign markets. It is also the implementation of a key element of PKO Bank Polski’s 2025‑2027 strategy. Over the strategy’s validity period, the bank wants to expand its foreign network to twelve units supporting its activities in EU countries.
In recent months, the bank has opened representative offices in Sweden, Lithuania and Austria. Their objectives are to promote PKO Bank Polski’s offer and establish initial relationships with potential corporate clients. The offices also conduct market analyses to assess business potential. If justified, PKO Bank Polski will consider transforming representative offices into foreign corporate branches.
In parallel, intensive work is underway to launch another four foreign corporate branches. According to assumptions, they are to start operations before the end of 2027. Currently, the bank’s foreign corporate branches operate in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania.
Local Content Strategy for SMEs
The bank is developing a local content strategy, shifting the focus from financing only large contractors to supporting the entire supply chain – including subcontractors and local companies. This allows more companies to participate in strategic investments.
PKO BP proposes splitting contracts into smaller stages (milestones) with more frequently settled advances and automatic renewal of bank guarantees after they have been settled by the contracting parties.
– This will allow smaller‑scale companies to meet tender requirements and secure liquidity throughout the contract implementation period – explains the PKO BP press office.
At the same time, the bank wants to help create a new market standard in cooperation with local governments and investors, promoting solutions that increase the share of local companies in investment projects. The goal is to strengthen regional economies, increase competitiveness and build strong local entities capable of carrying out the largest infrastructure and energy projects in the future and exporting their services abroad.
Geopolitical Risk and Swiss Franc Provisions
The bank regularly updates the level of provisions for legal risk on Swiss franc loans, adjusting them to market conditions and court rulings. In 2025, the bank created PLN 4.4 billion in provisions for legal risk on foreign currency housing loans. A decline in the number of court cases and an increase in the number of settlements is currently observed.
– The level of provisions the bank estimates to create in 2026 will be lower than in the previous year – says the PKO BP press office.
In terms of geopolitical risks, Polish banks – including PKO Bank Polski – have strong capital positions and proven resilience in European stress tests. The bank currently does not observe a significant deterioration in asset quality.
In a scenario of escalating conflicts, the main channels of impact on the economy would be energy prices and inflation. Higher prices could translate into slower consumption and more cautious corporate investment decisions, but at the same time would provide an impetus to accelerate investment in energy efficiency and diversification of energy sources. The bank is prepared for various scenarios, monitors its portfolio continuously, and regularly updates stress test scenarios.
Photo: PKO BP
