VI Congress

On 26-27 November 2009 was held VI Congress on Housing Finance in Central and Eastern European countries

 

The Polish Bank Association organized for the sixth time an international congress regarding housing finance market issues, one of the key events in the Polish banking environment.

 

 

The VI International Congress on Housing Finance in the Central and Eastern European countries, which took place on 26-27 November 2009 in Holiday Inn Hotel situated in the suburbs of Warsaw, confirmed and consolidated its importance as an perfect occasion to exchange ideas, opinions and experiences between all institutions and environments which activities are strongly connected with housing finance market. The Congress was attended by over 120 people - many eminent guests from Poland and all over the world, including representatives of the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ministry of Finance, Vice President of the National Bank of Poland, board members of the Bank Guarantee Fund, representatives of banking, insurance and developer sectors, credit intermediaries and real estate agents, as well as representatives of property appraisers. Special guests were experts from Canada, Belgium (representatives of the European Federations), Germany, the Czech Republic and Russia.

The main objective of the Congress was to present the achievements and problems associated with a widely understood policy of housing finance during the financial crisis in the world and to exchange opinions on its actual impact on selected CEE countries. The presentations and discussions revealed that some CEE countries outlasted international turmoil in good condition. These should include Poland, which at that time achieved an economic growth as the only country in the European Union. The participants debated on legal regulations stimulating housing industry development and aiming at satisfying housing needs of the Polish citizens; on the development of mortgage market in Europe and the situation of Poland among other European countries; on the opportunities of refinancing current mortgage credit portfolio being at disposal of banks, as well as possibilities of obtaining new mortgage refinance credits in Poland; and also they discussed the tools which may support the development of housing industry as well as ways of extending knowledge about the real estate market and efficiency of saving in building societies. Moreover, there was presented the current status of the global financial crisis and its consequences in Canada and the United States, and discussed the solutions that based on the experiences of those countries may be implemented on the Polish market. The session devoted to problems of financing housing developers appeared to be the most vivid and controversial.

During the Congress, the first "National Report on home mortgage loans and transaction prices of real estate", drawn up on the basis of the AMRON and SARFiN databases, was presented. The Report aroused great interest of the environment, especially of the media, which indicated the crucial role of this type of reports for the full presentation of the housing market situation in response to consumer expectations. Due to high demand on detailed analysis and summaries concerning housing market, the Polish Bank Association decided to prepare periodically the AMRON-SARFiN Report and make it public.

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The VI International Congress on Housing Finance in the CEE countries was organised during the difficult period for the global economy, concerning the economic slow down in many countries representing different levels of the economic development. The decrease in pace of the economic growth, decrease in the GDP level, increase in unemployment and decrease in purchasing power lead to situation that the housing finance faces many difficulties resulting from the character of the current crisis.

In particular, the present situation on the global market relates to diversity of the crisis consequences not only referring to territorial aspects, but also to scope or scale of economic processes, e.g. situation in Poland and other CEE countries.

The VI Congress was mainly dedicated to discussion on perspectives of the financial market development in Poland and other countries, as well as on necessity of harmonization of particular countries’ activities in order to standardize the law, rules and requirements on global markets, including implementation and distribution of new financial instruments.

Obviously, the real estate financing market development is very important not only for Poland, but also other CEE countries. The VI Congress gave opportunity to get knowledge and understanding in what direction market drives and how adopted solutions influence the business conditions for its participants in different countries.

The Congress attended representatives of the following environments: relevant international organizations, decision makers, regulators, supervisory authorities, banks/ other financial institutions, insurers, funds, experts, professors, developers, real estate brokers etc.

More information and the summary of VI Congress is avalaible on following link:

2010.01.04_vi congress_summary_eng.pdf