The Polish Financial Supervision Authority (Komisja Nadzoru Finansowego (KNF)), together with its board and chairman, is the entity responsible for supervising undertakings operating on the Polish financial and capital markets.
The KNF exercises supervision over the financial market in Poland, which includes the following:
The types of cases for which the KNF is the only competent body that can issue rulings and recommendations are, amongst others: authorization to carry on regulated activities on the financial market (e.g., payment institutions), administrative sanctions, and other matters that are essential for the proper functioning of the financial market and of the capital market.
Together with the KNF, the European Supervisory Authorities (i.e., the European Banking Authority (EBA), the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) (ESAs), and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA)) play an important role in issuing technical standards and in some limited respects have powers of direct supervision over Polish undertakings.
The European Central Bank supervises Eurozone banks under the EU's Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM). As Poland is not in the Eurozone, Polish banks do not fall within the purview of the SSM. However, branches or subsidiaries of Polish banks located in the Eurozone do come under the SSM and are supervised by the European Central Bank.
As regards compliance with anti-money laundering, the state administration body responsible for preventing money laundering and terrorism in the Polish financial system is the General Inspector of Financial Information (GIFI). The GIFI's duties include analyzing information on assets suspected by the GIFI to be related to a money laundering or terrorist financing offense, procedures for halting a transaction or blocking an account, drawing up a national risk assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing and a strategy for countering these offenses, as well as exercising control over compliance with anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regulations.