National Bank of Poland’s Payment System Council recommends the payment services laws to be significantly changed

The amendment to the Accounting Act is intended to make it easier for entities run by collegiate bodies which, for technical or logistical reasons, have difficulties with performing their duties. This is particularly important for board members of companies who reside permanently outside of Poland.

Financial statements to be signed by a single board member

It should be pointed out that the current regulations do not provide for the possibility of signing financial statements by one member of the management board in the case where the entity is managed by a body consisting of more than one person. The amendment to the Accounting Act provides for the possibility of the statements being signed by only one member of the management board. However, it will be necessary for him/her to obtain from the other members statements confirming that the financial statement meets the requirements provided for in the act or to refuse to submit such a statement. In case of refusal to make the statement, the person will be required to prepare a written justification for the refusal to make the statement. A refusal to submit a statement will be treated as equivalent to a refusal to sign the financial statements, which means that it will have to be justified. Both the statement and the refusal to make the statement (model for refusal to sign) will be attached to the financial statements.

Format of financial statements

According to the amendment of the aforementioned act the rules regarding the format of financial statements will also change.

The planned amendment indicates the obligation for issuers to prepare financial statements in a unified form which is expected to increase their usefulness (one format for financial statements for various purposes). It will also make it possible to use uniform formats within capital groups where some subsidiaries are not issuers.

The effect of the changes introduced will be that financial statements will have to be prepared and filed in the format:

– XHTML for issuers,

– XHTML or another searchable format for non-issuers preparing financial statements in accordance with IAS.

For consolidated statements, the applicable format is:

– XHTML using Inline XBRL markup language for issuers,

– XHTML or another searchable format for non-issuer entities preparing financial statements in accordance with IAS, with Inline XBRL tagging for those statements.

The Amendment would come into force within 14 days after the date of enactment, subject to the following provisions that would take effect on:

1. January 1st, 2022, there will be an obligation to prepare financial statements in a specified form for the fiscal year beginning December 31, 2020, and for those whose fiscal year began before January 1, 2021. (applies to annual and consolidated financial statements);

2. June 1^st, 2022 the data communications system of the National Court Register is to be adapted to accept new formats of submitted documents, i.e. financial statements and management reports.