Project name: Strengthening the institutional and administrative capacities of the UKNF to address the new supervisory tasks resulting from the implementation of the European Union law.

Scope of support: A set of activities to support the competence of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority - UKNF, completed during the period 2018–2019 as part of the approved technical support for the UKNF from the funds of the EU Structural Reform Support Programme (SRSP), pursuant to the decision of the European Commission made during the first round of the application procedure.

The support aimed to strengthen the institutional and administrative capacities of the KNF to address the new supervisory tasks resulting from the implementation of the European Union law by conducting a cycle of three sets of specialist training and consulting activities for the employees of the UKNF with regard to the new EU rules in the field of financial reporting, consumer protection and bank resolution.

The said specialist training and consulting activities have been carried out by contract experts hired by the EC services and aimed to facilitate the exchange of best experiences, know-how and supervisory practices to raise the professional skills of the employees of the Polish supervisory authority.

Between December 2018 and April 2019, as part of the first two sets, 5 training and consulting workshops were conducted by the experts selected by the EC:

• The set of training courses on consumer protection involved training workshops on consumer protection in relation to the Directive on insurance distribution, attended by 38 representatives of supervisory departments of the UKNF, and a specialist training course on packaged retail investment products and insurance-based investment products, attended by 35 employees of the Polish supervisor. 
• The set of training courses on financial reporting involved a cycle of three interrelated training workshops (in the area of specific topics regarding IFRS 9 Financial instruments and IFRS 13 Fair Value Measurement; prudential and accounting consolidation as well as the audit of separate and consolidated financial statements). 109 employees of the UKNF took part in the workshops.

The third set concerning bank resolution was carried out in November 2019 as part of the TAIEX-SRSP expert mission, which involved specialist expert consultations, workshops and exchange of best practices and international experiences. 

The above-mentioned training and consulting workshop was organised by the EC services responsible for the SRSP in cooperation with TAIEX and experts from the European Central Bank, the Single Resolution Board, the German supervisory authority, the Bank of Italy, and the Spanish institution responsible for resolution. The meetings were attended by 41 representatives of the UKNF departments and 10 representatives of the Ministry of Finance and the Bank Guarantee Fund. 

The scope of the expert support was in line with the objectives of the requested technical support and further arrangements made between the UKNF (the beneficiary) and the EC services. All the three training and consulting sets were successfully completed and reinforced the competence of the UKNF and helped to raise professional skills in terms of supervisory tasks.

The project was financed from the EC funds as part of the first application round of the Structural Reform Support Programme.

Contact:
Joanna Lipowczan
e-mail: joanna.lipowczan@knf.gov.pl