Krzysztof Wojdyło | In Principle

Poland’s first clearinghouse for cash-free payments was established in 1990. In 1991 the first payment cards for individual clients were issued in Poland. The history of cash-free trade in this country now goes back over a quarter-century. But one of the key Polish regulations governing money—the Foreign Exchange Law—has not kept pace with the evolution of the forms in which money is used, but remains fixed in times when the dominant form of money was cash. There are many signs that this state of affairs may soon change.

New regulations and interpretations will soon have an impact on equity- and debt-based crowdfunding business models.

Over the next few months, a legal regime may come into existence in Poland for providing new types of toll collection and settlement services.

Operators of crowdfunding platforms must consider numerous potentially applicable regulations, governing such matters as electronic services, payment services, money laundering, securities trading, foreign exchange and banking.

Amendments to the Corporate Income Tax Act which went into effect on 1 January 2014 provide an opportunity to revive the practice of subparticipation in lending in Poland.

The process of creating virtual currencies depends on the model used for the currency. In some instances it is a centralised process, where it is easy to identify the entity responsible for creation of the currency. In other cases, it is a decentralised process, in which various—often anonymous—users of the decentralised system may be involved in creation of the currency.

One of the possible applications of the Bitcoin protocol is smart contracts—legal relationships created, monitored and enforced automatically using the Bitcoin protocol.

Debt restructuring may be approached using solutions involving an assignment of receivables. In practice, depending on the particular factual situation, assignment may offer an attractive alternative to more traditional restructuring methods.

Parliamentarians seek to strip banks of the opportunity to use bank writs of execution while awarding a comparable privilege to credit unions.

Transactions involving aircraft typically require that security be established in favour of the financing parties. Due to the small number of such transactions, this issue is still not well-known in Poland.

The recommendations published recently by the Financial Stability Board may result in more rigorous regulation of securitisation transactions.

Although the Payment Services Act has been in force only a short time, there are already plans to revamp it.