mBank just announced the best quarterly result in its history - a net profit of 1.085 billion zloty for the third quarter of 2026, almost 30 percent higher than a year earlier. At first glance, that sounds like simply good news for shareholders. But there's another side to this story worth understanding: Polish banks are currently paying record-high corporate tax, and yet some of them are still breaking profit records. What does that combination actually mean for someone who just has an account, a savings deposit, or a loan at one of these banks?
What actually happened
The third quarter of 2026 is reporting season for Poland's biggest banks. mBank was among the first to publish its numbers: group net profit reached 1.085 billion zloty, up from 837 million zloty a year earlier. The result was essentially in line with analyst expectations of around 1.1 billion zloty, and it marks the bank's best quarter ever. In the following days, other major banks - PKO BP, Pekao, and ING Bank Śląski - are reporting their own results.
Why lower, if mBank is setting records? The answer lies in the second part of this story - taxes. Since January 1, 2026, banks in Poland have been paying corporate income tax (CIT) at a rate of 30 percent, far above the standard 19 percent most companies pay. The rate is set to decrease in coming years - to 26 percent in 2027 and 23 percent from 2028 - but this year banks are bearing the heaviest part of that change.
Why the CIT increase matters so much
The Polish Bank Association (ZBP) reported that already in the first quarter of 2026, the sector paid 52 percent more CIT year on year - 5.7 billion zloty compared to 3.75 billion zloty a year earlier. Crucially, this happened alongside a lower gross profit, not a higher one. Combining CIT with the separate bank levy, the sector's total fiscal burden exceeded 7.4 billion zloty, consuming almost half of the gross profit generated - the effective tax rate jumped from around 30 percent at the end of the previous year to 44-45 percent. In an updated forecast from late August 2026, the association estimated that Polish banks' combined net profit for the full year 2026 would exceed 38.2 billion zloty, down from more than 49.1 billion zloty in 2025 - still noticeably lower than in the previous record year.
This is the context in which mBank's result should be read. A record net profit doesn't mean banks are suddenly doing better than ever - it means that despite an enormous additional tax burden and lower interest rates than a year or two ago, a bank can still generate solid revenue. For some, that's proof of the sector's resilience. For others, it's a signal that pressure on margins and fee income will keep growing in the coming quarters.
What this means for your wallet
For an everyday bank customer, this situation has a few practical consequences worth thinking through before your next financial decision.
- Pressure on fees and charges. When the tax burden rises while lower interest rates squeeze interest income, banks naturally look for other revenue sources. In practice, that can mean a greater willingness to raise account maintenance fees, currency conversion charges, or fees for add-on products - especially for customers who don't generate much income for the bank otherwise.
- Less appetite to compete on savings and deposit rates. When margins are under pressure, not every bank will be eager to offer attractive deposit promotions. Some institutions will keep fighting for fresh customer deposits, while others will prefer to limit their funding costs. The result is a growing spread between the best and the average offer on the market.
- More cautious lending. In an environment of higher taxes and uncertainty about further central bank rate decisions, banks may scrutinize creditworthiness more closely and be less flexible when negotiating loan terms, particularly for mortgages.
- Comparison shopping matters more than ever. Perhaps the most important takeaway here - when banks respond so differently to the same tax pressure, staying loyal to a single bank out of habit stops paying off automatically.
In other words, this isn't the moment to assume that because Bank X had a great offer six months ago, it still does. It's worth regularly checking our savings account comparison and our deposit comparison, because in this environment the rate differences between banks tend to be wider than usual - one bank may urgently need fresh deposits and run a promotion, while another is cutting funding costs at the very same time.
What to do right now
If you have money sitting idle, before deciding where to park it, check current deposit terms across several banks at once - the differences can be substantial, since some banks respond to the higher CIT burden by squeezing customers, while others fight even harder for deposits with better promotions. The same applies to your everyday account - if you're paying a maintenance fee or have to watch minimum monthly inflows to avoid one, check our personal account comparison to see whether there's an offer better suited to how you actually use your account.
If you're planning to take out a loan - personal or a mortgage - now is exactly the moment not to accept the first offer you're given. Banks are simultaneously facing higher tax costs and competing for good borrowers, so comparing several personal loan offers or mortgage offers can reveal differences in margin or fees that, over the life of the loan, add up to real savings.
Bottom line
mBank's record profit is good news for the bank itself and its shareholders, but for customers it's primarily a warning sign: the banking sector is now operating under very different tax conditions than just a year ago, and that always shows up somewhere in the customer relationship - through fees, deposit rates, or loan terms. The best defense in this situation is simple vigilance - comparing offers regularly instead of sticking with one bank out of habit. Check today whether your account, deposit, or loan is still the best choice available on the market.
Sources: mBank's Q3 2026 quarterly report and press release (bank.pl, mbank.pl); Bankier.pl - "30 proc. CIT dla bankow. Wchodza w zycie nowe przepisy podatkowe"; Rzeczpospolita/rp.pl - "Zyski bankow spadna o 30 proc. w 2026 r." (ZBP data for Q1 2026); PAP/Business Insider - "Zysk netto polskich bankow spadl do 21,4 mld zl w pierwszym polroczu" (ZBP forecast from 27.08.2026, 38.2 billion zloty).