The leasing industry is one of the engines of the Polish economy. It finances nearly 30% of investment outlays and is the preferred form of financing for the SME sector, which generates nearly 50% of national GDP – the report prepared by the Polish Leasing Association and EY-Parthenon consultancy states. However, its rapid development is still hindered by legal barriers, among other things, the impossibility of concluding leasing agreements remotely. “This is a flagship issue that the Polish leasing industry advocates: to consider the leasing agreement as a documentary form, so we do not have to sign it with a pen, but via a text message, a special code or even using face verification on a mobile phone, just as we do in banks,” says Paweł Pach, Chairman of the Council of the Polish Leasing Association.
The new report “Leasing on the Path of Transformation. 30 years of driving the economy”, prepared by the Polish Leasing Association (ZPL) and EY-Parthenon consultancy on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the first organization, shows that the Polish leasing market is currently the fastest growing market in the European Union. In terms of the value of leased assets, it currently ranks fifth in Europe, outrunning countries such as the UK, Germany, France, or Italy. “Almost 30% of all investment outlays in the Polish economy are financed by leasing” – notes Paweł Pach, Chairman of the Board of the Polish Leasing Association and CEO of PKO Leasing. “62% of small and medium-sized enterprises choose leasing as a basic form of financing their business activities, and half of the gross domestic product in Poland is created by the SME sector.”
The report states that over the last 18 years, the Polish leasing market has grown more than sixfold: from PLN 16 billion of financed assets in 2005 to PLN 102 billion in 2023, growing at an average rate of 10.9% per year and becoming one of the key elements of the functioning of the national economy. Last year, the industry broke the barrier of PLN 200 billion of all assets currently in use by over 1 million customers. Over the past 30 years, the total value of investments financed by leasing has reached as much as PLN 1 trillion.
In Poland, nearly half (49%) of leasing-financed assets are light vehicle leases. These are followed by machinery, equipment, and others (28% of the market), and heavy vehicles (22% of the market). Real estate accounts for only 1% of this market (a significant decrease from 15% in 2005). Leasing and loans finance movable assets more than investment loans – the value of all movable assets leased by the end of 2023 amounted to approximately PLN 200 billion, while for investment loans – PLN 170 billion.
Statistics also show that the main customer of leasing services is the SME sector (considering both leasing and leasing loans), which last year accounted for 69% of all customers (including micro-enterprises). Compared to other European countries, leasing in Poland is an extremely popular service, the indicators of leasing penetration are higher than the European average.
“In December last year, we asked entrepreneurs which products they most often use, and Poland came first in this study in terms of the use of leasing. Thus, the large interest in the leasing product among our local, native entrepreneurs contributes to the fifth position we currently hold in the EU” – says the Chairman of the Council of the Polish Leasing Association.
As the ZPL and EY report shows, there is an increasing share of lessors from banking groups and manufacturers’ groups on the Polish leasing market. At the same time, the importance of the largest companies is steadily growing: in the years 2018-2022, the market share of the 10 companies with the highest revenues increased by almost 10 percentage points (from 55 to 64 percent). Importantly, as many as 77% of companies operating in the Polish leasing market believe that the economic situation in this industry will be good over the next five years, and an additional 18% believe that it will be very good.
“In the report, we also show trends that will influence the leasing sector in the coming years. This is primarily broadly understood ESG, carbon footprint measurement, electrification of our assets and management of these assets from the beginning to the end of its lifecycle, i.e. closed-loop economy. It is also further challenges related to the digitization of customer service process and the whole sectors. And finally, changing a certain business model that is supposed to meet the customers’ expectations, so that financing is part of the service related to obtaining an asset for an entrepreneur,” says Monika Constant, President of the Polish Leasing Association.
Experts assess that in the coming years, the leasing industry will transform from “financing assets” to “managing assets”, creating service ecosystems and providing customers with increasingly complex solutions. Leasing will also play a significant role in the energy transition of many key sectors for Poland – such as transport, industrial processing or agriculture – in which the leasing industry has so far been too active. The upcoming regulatory changes will, in turn, further support digitization, building the perception of the industry as agile, operating quickly and effectively, offering flexible solutions and tailored to customers.
“We also observe several barriers that currently hinder the development of leasing, and these are primarily regulatory barriers” – points out Monika Constant. “The leasing agreement is currently the only one that cannot be signed remotely. And this lack of so-called documentary form, the possibility of signing and annexing leasing agreements remotely, is a large limitation for entrepreneurs today.”
“This is a flagship issue that the leasing industry in Poland advocates: to consider the leasing agreement as a documentary form so we do not have to sign it with a pen, but via a text message, a special code, or even use face verification on a mobile phone, just as we do in banks. In the leasing industry, this is still impossible,” adds Paweł Pach.
Representatives of this sector also point to other legal barriers that hinder the development of leasing today, including restrictions on the use of EU grants and funds when financing leasing investments and the lack of possibility for e-registration of a vehicle, which prevents the industry from full digital sales and customer service.
“Another important issue is the possibility of verification and automatic pulling of customer data from economic databases. At the moment, regulations mean that access to BIK databases and thus the assessment of risk and the credibility of the customer cannot take place automatically. A change in this area would significantly facilitate and speed up the conclusion of leasing agreements” – says Monika Constant. “The industry is also plagued by the law on consumer pawn loans, which imposes excessive protection on farmer-entrepreneurs. As an industry, we are fighting for an amendment to this law, trying to ensure that farmer entrepreneurs can use the preferred source of financing, which is leasing, without being covered by this excessive protection that currently operates in the law.”
