Polish Financial Supervision Authority

The Polish Financial Supervision Authority (PFSA) is the financial regulatory authority for Poland. The PFSA was formed on 19 September 2006 pursuant to the Financial Market Supervision Act of 21 July 2006.

The PFSA supervises the banking, capital, insurance and pension sectors, payment institutions and payment service offices, electronic money institutions and credit unions. It monitors brokerage services on the OTC derivatives market provided by investment firms to clients. 

The purpose of supervision of the financial market is to ensure its proper functioning, stability, security and transparency, confidence in the financial market, and to ensure that the interests of market participants are protected.

1. Safety of Client Funds：

Brokers are required to put clients funds into segregated accounts.

2. Requirement on Forex Brokers' Reports：

Annual Audit Reports; Daily Transaction Reports.

Generally speaking, PFSA-regulated broker profile will be found at the Entities page on PFSA website. Try to find it and check if it will match the info from the broker website.

The detailed steps are as below:

1. Find the name of the forex broker, which you can get from the broker's website; 

2. Enter the name into the search bar on https://www.knf.gov.pl/en/ENTITIES ;

3. And you'll get the broker's contents on PFSA website. At this time you need to check the 'Scope of activity' : check if the broker has the authorization to provide '69/4/5 - 13 - wymiana walutowa, w przypadku gdy jest to związane z działalnością maklerską w zakresie wskazanym w ust. 2' ;

Note:

If the broker is an EEA authorised firm, you need to check if the broker has the authorization to provide '4 - usługi dewizowe, w przypadku, gdy są one związane ze świadczeniem usług inwestycyjnych' of 'B - Additional services from Section B of Annex I to Directive 2004/39 / EC' and '9 - kontrakty finansowe na transakcje różnicowe' of 'C - Financial instruments from Section C of Annex I to Directive 2004/39 / EC'; 

It's better to check further information in its home state regulator.

4. If all the steps above have been done, don't forget to check the most important information: check if the firm details published on PFSA website matches the ones you'll go to trade with, especially the website and email etc. 

If no, please keep away the broker because it's probably an unauthorized firm and your money will fall in danger.

When you have disputes with a PFSA-regulated broker, you can proceed the following ways:

1st way: The recommended way is to contact the broker directly and discuss with it to find a solution.

2nd way: If you're not satisfied with the broker's solution, try to contact the Financial Ombudsman and municipal or district consumer ombudsmen or non-governmental consumers’ organisations such as the Consumer Federation and the Polish Consumers’ Association.

3rd way: If both parties agree, a financial market dispute may be settled out of court. There are three main Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) measures that offer the opportunity to settle a dispute out of court.

● Arbitration Court at the PFSA
● Financial Ombudsman
● Bank Consumer Arbitration

4th way: If the 3 ways above can't solve the dispute, the last way is to issue a case to the court in Poland.