National Bank of Poland lost billions

NBP (National Bank of Poland) has a huge loss: 7.8 billion zloty in 2007. This is the result of zloty strenghtening. It lowered a valuation of the bank's monetary reserves. Had it not been for the high profits of the central bank from an operating activity, the loss would have reached 12 billion zloty.
President of NBP Slawomir Skrzypek announced last year that the strenghtening of zloty may mean a negative financial results in 2007 for a bank. But few people expected it to be so bad. "Almost 8 billion zloty loss is a very negative surprise. Expectations were significantly lower" - said Maciej Krzak, CASE economist. He adds, however, that it is hard to blame the bank for this result. "It was not possible to predict that zloty could strengthen that much" - he added.
Bank must cope with the problem of high losses alone, without the budget aid. This means that NBP will cover it with its own profits, which NBP is going to achieve during next years. According to the current law, bank may cover losses only with 5 percent of its profit.