Q: Do you remember the last time your brokerage house won a distinction?
A: Our latest distinction is quite recent. The “Forbes” magazine published results of a survey carried out in conjunction with the Association of Private Investors (SII) to find out which brokerage house in Poland is the most friendly to clients. We topped the ranking, with those polled giving us particularly high marks for our Internet platform and the quality of our services and recommendations. Results of a survey in which institutional investors had been asked to assess Polish brokerage houses were published in the same issue of the magazine. In this ranking, our brokerage house also came first. It received the highest marks for professionalism, confidence, recommendations and the quality of analyses. At the beginning of the year we were rewarded in a similar way when the “Rzeczpospolita” daily carried out a poll among clients. The survey produced the same outcome. It is very important for us because this assessment comes from people to whom we provide our services.
Q: Behind your back, I can see a 2005 certificate of distinction from CeTO, an institution licensed to organise and manage a regulated OTC market in Poland and authorised to create platforms for electronic trading in securities and financial instruments. This shows you have
led the market for quite some time. Do you have a recipe for that?
Q: There is probably no single recipe. One reason is that we operate on a fast-changing market where it is necessary to respond to customer expectations immediately. In our trade, developing new products and offering them to clients is not really something which can give one a competitive edge because such proposals can be imitated very easily. What has given us some advantage over the very strong competition, I think, is our stable staff, which creates a value added in our brokerage house. Clients point to the quality of our products. And this means that even if the products are identical or very similar to those offered by other brokerage houses, ours are of the highest standard. And it is people who stand behind this: the brokerage business is based on personalities. Our management staff have worked together for many years and know how to recruit the best specialists in very narrow fields, like trading, research and IT. In fact, at the end of the day, all these things combined are needed to produce a favourable result.
Q: Do you render services exclusively to retail clients?
A: Initially, we offered services only to retail clients and we continue to focus on them. But since 2003 we have provided services to all groups of clients present on the Polish market: retail clients, and Polish and foreign institutional investors. The 2003 saw a very important development: BZ WBK took over the Polish subsidiary of Crédit Suisse/First Boston. As a result of the acquisition we gained access to know-how, and acquired a valuable team of people and institutional clients, including foreign ones. It was a milestone in the company’s development.
Q: The watchword of this issue of “Polish Market” is “Poland – a country of safe money and safe investments.” What is your opinion about it?
A: The Polish market is as safe as the markets of the most developed European countries and the United States. Our regulations do not differ from those in force in other countries. We have to put special emphasis on regulations of the European Union, of which we are an integral part. The example of the MiFID directive is very characteristic in this respect: although executory provisions have not been issued yet, an overwhelming majority of Polish brokerage houses and other institutions to which the directive applies have already complied with it. It is not only about “safe money”: it also applies to our deposit system, money laundering monitoring system and the organisation of the market. To put it simply, our market is mature and it is only because of its short history that we are still classified as an emerging market.
Q: 2007 was a record year in terms of the number of companies debuting on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. What about 2008?
A: We are moderately optimistic. All economic indicators are still very good in Poland. But news from foreign markets is more disquieting. This concerns especially the United States. But we are looking at the future with optimism because we have some contracts signed with future issuers. It seems that the market will continue to expand next year.