Polish National Depository for Securities (NDS) has recently amended its regulations to allow Free-of-Payment (FoP) settlement between the final client and a foreign broker in transactions concluded under the provisions of Article 34A of the Public Trading Law.
This decision comes after discussion initiated by Bank BPH, which has lobbied for the introduction of FoP to encourage foreign brokers to switch to Article 34A. This switch, it believes, will improve the Polish settlement environment. Bank BPH received an official interpretation of Article 34A issued by the Polish SEC in June 2004.
The amended regulations of NDS will come into force as of October 1, 2004. Moreover, NDS will allow that the cash side of such FoP transactions to be settled in foreign currency between the final client and the foreign broker if the transaction is done under the stipulations of Article 34A.