The establishment of Dexia Kommunalkredit Polska Sp.z.o.o. as an origination company at the end of 2002 marked the entry into the Polish market. Through the provision of tailor-made financing solutions for local authorities and by offering a number of newly developed products (such as liquidity enhancement models and municipal bonds), the company attracted high market attention in the following years. Given the very favourable development of business in Poland and the enormous business potential of the public sector, Kommunalkredit and Dexia applied for a banking licence in Poland. The new bank – Dexia Kommunalkredit Bank Polska S.A. – has been active since July 2006, offering financing via loans and capital market solutions, special purpose long-term infrastructure financing and various other innovative financing solutions.
Dexia Kommunalkredit Bank Polska is a specialist bank for the public sector. The first shareholders of the bank were Dexia Crédit Local – the world´s biggest provider of finance for public infrastructure projects, Kommunalkredit Austria AG - Austria’s number one bank in the public finance sector and Dexia Kommunalkredit Bank AG - specialist bank for the public sector in Central and Eastern Europe. Nowadays the latter is the sole shareholder of Dexia Kommunalkredit Bank Polska.
Dexia Kommunalkredit Bank Polska offers long-term financing solutions for public sector projects. The customers are state, voivodeships, poviats and gminas´ governments. The bank also finances projects of public utility companies (infrastructure, municipal services, health) with major shareholders of local governments.
The strategy
Dexia Kommunalkredit Bank Polska intends to become the market leader in public finance in Poland. The new EU Member States will face various challenges in the field of public finance that the Member States of the "old EU" have already coped with. For example, with a view to a future participation in the European Monetary Union, increasing attention will have to be paid to financing solutions in order to enable these countries to meet the Maastricht criteria. Hence, there will be a growing demand for new products that will have to be established in the market according to local needs. As Kommunalkredit and Dexia developed several Maastricht-neutral financing solutions throughout Europe in the past, they will be able to transfer their specialist know-how to Poland through Dexia Kommunalkredit Bank Polska.