Abstract

The issue of ethics in banks is quite complex. The behaviour of banks in recent years significantly deviated from the desired ethical standards. The scale of financial fees imposed on financial institutions is has also been growing. In Poland, the lack of research devoted to conduct makes the assessment of the level of compliance impossible, especially since it would be too superficial to link this assessment of individual banks solely to fines imposed by the PFSA. At the same time it seems that the current lack of conduct regulations sensu stricto do not have a sufficient (direct) impact on the real operations of banks, and the supervisors lack the competence to force fi nancial institutions to behave more ethically. In the United Kingdom, for several years now, an innovative study has been conducted measuring the level of compliance with conduct in credit institutions. In order for the mechanism for awarding ethical behaviour to be eff ective, it must motivate the action of the bank’s shareholders rather than its employees. This paper proposes a new regulatory solution aimed at rewarding the ethical behaviour of banks. It would consist of a six-month assessment of the ethics of banks in Poland, conducted on the basis of a survey and a qualitative study (being an extended version of the cited study from the United Kingdom). Based on the results of such a study, the PFSA could reduce or increase the soft capital requirement by one percentage point.

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