Institutional Analysis of Banks and Personal Loan Companies: Lesson from Poland
Abstract: The purpose of the article is to explain changes in the behavior of individuals, their actions, choices and ways of thinking that took place under the influence of banking and personal loan companies in Poland. The hypothesis adopted here is that mistakes made in the lawmaking process in Poland caused a number of adverse social changes, which affected the poorest part of society. The article is devoted to legal norms which banks started to apply as prudential regulations after the financial crisis from 2008 to 2015. In 2016, new important legal regulations were introduced which slightly changed the image of the market described in the article. The article describes the results of the author’s research concerning far-reaching social consequences of the regulations introduced at that time. Such consequences include people already in the lowest-income levels of society falling further into poverty, as well as loss of trust in the state as an institution failing to protect all of its citizens.