Implementation of CCD II: Dispute over consumer credit, SKD, and gold-plating at the KSE stage

In the last week of April 2026, with only six months left before the EU transposition deadline for Directive (EU) 2023/2225 on credit agreements for consumers (CCD II), five separate ministerial positions were filed with the Committee for European Affairs (Komitet do Spraw Europejskich, KSE) on the draft Polish Act on Consumer Credit and on Amendments to the Act on Consumer Rights, prepared by the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK).

The volume and substance of those positions indicate that the project is unlikely to proceed to Council of Ministers adoption in its present form, despite the directive’s application date of 20 November 2026 (Article 48 of Directive (EU) 2023/2225).

CCD II: The Ministry of Development and Technology Criticises the Expansion of the Scheme to Include Larger Loans

The Ministry of Development and Technology (MRiT) maintained divergence concerning opposition to bringing credit agreements above EUR 100,000 within the scope of the new act. MRiT continues to characterise this as a departure from the declared “EU+0” standard and an unjustified cost on the financial sector.

It also rejected the drafter’s position that the “one-in, one-out” principle does not apply to EU-transposition projects, on the basis that the draft goes beyond the directive’s minimum and therefore retains its character as a national choice subject to regulatory-offsetting discipline.

MRiT raised three further divergences:

• the absence of an Impact Assessment (OSR) for the project’s effect on Polish business information bureaux (biura informacji gospodarczej, BIGs), which serve over 800,000 clients, hold more than 200 million records and release over 50 million economic information items annually;
• Article 43(7) of the draft, which extends reporting duties to debt purchasers – a measure that, in MRiT’s view, exceeds the directive and distorts competition in favour of the institution established under Article 105(4) of the Polish Banking Law (currently BIK);
• Article 21(2a) of the Economic Information Act (introduced by Article 145 of the draft), which would oblige BIGs to notify consumers of payment arrears within 30 days – a structural mismatch, since BIGs only transmit creditor data and do not verify whether arrears actually exist.

RCL highlights issues with the implementation of CCD II and the BIK regulations

The Government Legislation Centre (RCL), raised concerns of a constitutional-legislative character.

Most importantly, RCL stated that the project cannot simultaneously transpose Directive (EU) 2023/2673 on distance financial services in respect of matters outside consumer credit, and recommended that those provisions be carved out into a separate amending act or that the entire project be restructured as an amending act rather than a free-standing statute.

RCL also flagged the omission of the EUR 100,000 ceiling as gold-plating within the meaning of recital 14 CCD II that ought to have been recorded in both the OSR and the reverse compliance table.

On drafting, RCL identified, among others: the consumer-credit definition in Article 2(1)–(2) as ignotum per ignotum; divergence of the total cost of credit definition in Article 4(4) from Article 3(5) of the directive; misalignment of the durable medium definition in Article 4(24) with Article 3(11); and a reference in Article 30(1)(5) of the Private International Law Act to the now-repealed Directive 2008/48/EC.

As a matter of practical workability, RCL noted that the right of objection in the BIK database (Article 105(4ia)) can only be exercised after arrears have crystallised — defeating its preventive purpose.

Position of the ministries: SKD, gold-plating, and the financing of lending institutions

The Ministry of Finance and Economy (MF), raised a serious procedural concerns. MF objects to:

• the design of the free-credit sanction (sankcja kredytu darmowego, SCD) and its tying to the creditworthiness assessment – disproportionate, and inconsistent with Financial Stability Committee position; MF warns expressly of the risk of abuse by professional claim-aggregators;

• extension of database reporting to debt purchasers as gold-plating distorting competition between the Article 105(4) institution and BIGs;

• maintenance of the debt-financing ban on lending institutions as an unprompted gold-plating restriction with no analogue in comparable Member States — and identifies CCD II transposition as the appropriate moment to remove it;

• MF endorses in full the UKNF position (improper transposition, missing EUR 100,000 limit, dual-database requirement, regulatory-arbitrage risk, absence of a simplified creditworthiness option) and the position of the Polish Chamber of Insurance (PIU).

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) position is the most pointed. The Ministry states bluntly that the project does not achieve any of the four implementation objectives it itself identifies.

The MoJ’s central argument is proportionality. Citing the Warsaw Enterprise Institute (WEI) report on the shadow lending market – 15% of the market, PLN 5.1 billion annually, 77% of loan applications denied in H1 2025, 59% of applicants denied by all regulated lenders, 45% seeking alternative finance and 73% of those denied for health-related needs entering the shadow market – the Ministry warns that the project may aggravate, rather than mitigate, financial exclusion.

On the courts, the MoJ records that consumer-credit and lending matters generated 1,639,880 cases in 2022–2025; Swiss-franc mortgage (frankowe) cases account for 573,076 filings; and in 2024 frankowe cases represented 44% of a regional court judge’s caseload and 75% of an appellate judge’s caseload.

The Ministry cites the CJEU judgments of 16 April 2026 in C-752/24 Jangielak, C-753/24 Rzepacz and C-901/24 Falucka, together with the anticipated impact of C-744/24 Bank PKO BP on the free-credit sanction.

The MoJ further objects to, among others, Article 14 (a free-account requirement absent from the directive); Article 40 (a literal reading of the debt-assignment ban that would block transfers in bankruptcy or restructuring proceedings); Article 65(2) (a durable-medium requirement for assignment notifications, not required by the directive); Article 66(7) (judicial moderation of the SCD, which “will be the source of numerous court disputes and push standard-setting into litigation”); and Article 161(5) (an unnecessary transitional provision).

Finally, the Ministry reiterates the objection it first raised on 15 September 2025: the common courts are not listed in the OSR as affected entities, despite Chapter 11 of the draft introducing new criminal offences that expand the criminal jurisdiction of district and regional courts.

Key risks associated with the transposition of CCD II in Poland

Five ministerial positions at the KSE stage point to material redrafting before any Council of Ministers adoption.

The fault lines are structural rather than cosmetic: scope (the EUR 100,000 ceiling), SCD architecture and its linkage to creditworthiness, dual-database reporting (BIK and BIGs), supervisory architecture for intermediaries, and EU-law and GDPR conformity.

With the application date fixed at 20 November 2026, the risk of a late or imperfect transposition is real and translates directly into legal risk for banks, lending institutions, debt purchasers and BNPL providers active on the Polish market, as well as for foreign investors entering it.

In light of the planned transposition of CCD II, it is advisable to assess now how the new regulations will impact credit models, documentation, credit assessment processes, and reporting obligations.

Our team is monitoring the progress of the UC82 draft and supporting lenders, intermediaries, debt purchasers, and BNPL providers in preparing for regulatory changes. Contact us to discuss the risks and adapt your operations to the new requirements.