The Polish government’s policy to introduce mortgage payment holidays to help consumers with the cost of living crisis have proven to be very popular in the country, with over 500,000 Polish families already claiming their mortgage payment holiday out of the approximately 2 million entitled to do so.
During a recent press conference, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki pointed to the fact that the government was actively helping borrowers by providing them with the right to suspend their mortgage payments to cope with the higher costs of mortgages caused by the increase in interest rates.
He contrasted this with the way the previous liberal administration led by Donald Tusk did nothing to help mortgage holders when mortgage payments rose sharply after the financial crisis in the late 2000s.
Morawiecki explained that these are usually ordinary families with children who need help after the mortgage interest rate hike caused by increased interest rates. The government was determined to help them and make sure they were not left behind.
Morawiecki denies that the credit holiday scheme will hit banks.
“It is being realized at a time when profitability of the banking sector is high,” said the Polish prime minister. He reassured commentators that the liquidity of the Polish banking sector was sound and that the banks were sufficiently capitalized.
The mortgage payment holiday scheme began to function on July 29. It allows mortgage holders to suspend their repayments for up to eight months until the end of next year. During a single quarter, repayments can be suspended for a maximum of two months. The scheme is limited to those repaying mortgages denominated in the Polish currency, the złoty (PLN).
According to the prime minister, the cost to the banks over the next two years will be up to 20 billion złoty (€4.2 billion). He said that mortgage holders would not have to face additional documentation that was already provided to the banks in the original mortgage applications to make the system as simple and just as possible.
