The competence of the PFSA has been determined under the Act of 21 July 2006 on financial market supervision and acts regulating activities of particular sectors of the financial market, i.e. banking, insurance, pensions, capital, cooperative banks and payment services.
The PFSA’s supervision of the financial market aims at ensuring its proper functioning, stability, security and transparency, trust to the financial market, and protection of the participants’ interests by providing reliable information on the market.

The PFSA implements the above goals by carrying out the licensing, regulatory, control and disciplinary function. The PFSA issues licenses for banks, cooperative banks, domestic payment institutions, insurance and reinsurance undertakings, open pension funds, investment funds or investment companies. The legislator allocated a set of competencies with regard to supervisory measures to the PFSA. Thus, e.g. in case a violation of existing legal regulations is found, the PFSA may impose financial penalties provided for by the law and withdraw license held by a financial institution. If a market practice is controversial, the PNSA may issue individual recommendations for a specific entity or recommendations or guidelines aimed to affect the entire financial market sector. The PFSA analyses reports submitted by financial institutions on running basis and assesses whether they satisfy legally defined capital requirements. The scope of competence of the PFSA also includes carrying out control procedures in supervised entities. However, it should be emphasised that both the above and other supervisory measures are taken by the PFSA ex officio not on a motion by a customer or any other participant in the financial market. This means that any reports on irregularities in activities of supervised entities submitted to the PFSA are not by themselves a basis for application on specific supervisory measures by the PFSA. Nonetheless, they are analysed on each occasion and may initiate supervisory measures. Reports constitute a very important source of information on the functioning of the financial market.