Within its marketing activities, PKO Bank Polski SA operates within the limits and on the basis of the Bank’s internal regulations regarding the rules for marketing activities. In its communications, the Bank complies with the principles of ethics, which are described in the Appendix to the above document named “General requirements for creating advertising messages regarding trading in financial instruments”.
These regulations define the features of the appropriate advertising message, as well as the list of undesirable actions. According to detailed provisions, the advertising message (inter alia):
- should be designed in a reliable manner, not be misleading, and should feature respect of the generally applicable laws, principles of fair trading and good practices;
- must not present benefits in such a way that would diminish the significance of costs and risks associated with the purchase of a product or service;
- should not be misleading or create the possibility of misleading.
In addition to the accepted internal regulations, the Bank follows the principles contained in the following documents in its marketing communications:
- “The Code of Banking Ethics” prepared by the Polish Bank Association within the Principles of Good Banking Practice;
- “Good Practices in consumer credit advertising standards” developed within the framework of the cooperation of the Polish Bank Association, the Conference of Financial Enterprises and the Association of Lending Companies;
- “The principles of advertising banking services” by the PFSA;
- “The canon of good financial market practices” prepared by entities from the financial and insurance sector.
In its marketing activities, the Bank has mechanisms that prevent the creation of unethical and unreliable messages. The units, which have the task of verifying the compliance of messages with the generally applicable laws as part of their duties, are consulted on the correctness of the communication every time. The principles of ethics in marketing communication and the mechanisms for preventing the risk of unethical communications also apply to materials prepared at the request of the Bank by external entities (advertising agencies, event agencies).
The same standards apply to all customer groups. Each message must be formulated in a comprehensible, reliable, credible way, regardless of the customer to whom it is addressed.
Within the Group, entities have internal regulations and provisions which require them to design messages with the observance of ethical standards (this does not apply to entities that do not conduct active marketing activities). These standards coincide with those adopted by the Bank. In addition, the Group’s entities, which have signed agency agreements with the Bank for the provision of marketing services, are required to apply the regulations in force at the Bank.
With regard to their marketing activities, all of the Group’s entities have control mechanisms to prevent the risk of an irresponsible or unethical communication from them. The acceptance of the marketing communication is appropriately approved by the entity’s supervisory units respectively, or additionally – in the case of entities that have an agency agreement with the Bank – by the Bank’s relevant units.
With regard to the marketing activities conducted by the Group and the Bank, no administrative proceedings were conducted in 2017 related to a breach of the regulations regarding ethics in the marketing communication.
