The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection initiated proceedings against Deutsche Bank Poland in May 2017. The Authority raised doubts as to the bank charging increased fees and not enabling the consumers to terminate the agreement at no cost. This practice had been in use since 2012 at least.
A few years ago, the bank’s customers, while taking an ordinary or mortgage loan, opened checking and savings accounts, which were also intended for servicing the loan. In exchange, they were offered e.g. a lower loan margin, so they paid lower installments. However, the bank increased the account maintenance fees – for example, from PLN 0 to PLN 8, from PLN 2 to PLN 12. Consumers who did not want to pay and terminated the agreement risked increasing the loan interest rate. And people who wanted to convert the account into another one could be charged by the bank with additional costs.
“We decided the bank must not make the consumer’s situation worse. If a financial institution introduces or increases a fee for maintenance of an account associated e.g. with a loan agreement, it must enable the consumer to terminate the agreement at no additional cost. The customers of Deutsche Bank Polska often had no choice but to pay a higher fee for the account handling, because termination of the agreement or its amendment were associated with cost”, says Marek Niechciał, the President of UOKiK.
Deutsche Bank Polska will compensate customers for losses. So it avoided a fine being imposed by UOKiK. The above commitment applies to the bank’s former and current customers.
