Banks are suddenly chasing other lenders' borrowers
If you've recently received a text or email from your bank - or a competitor - inviting you to "move your mortgage over," it's not a coincidence. In September 2026, a genuine price war over mortgage refinancing is playing out on the Polish market. Banks that until recently focused on winning brand-new mortgage customers are now putting just as much energy into hunting down borrowers who already have a mortgage - just with someone else.
Frozen interest rates are changing the rules
The central bank's Monetary Policy Council has kept its main interest rate at 3.75 percent for months. For the credit market, that means stability, but not necessarily growth. When rates stay flat and inflation, along with general economic uncertainty, cools people's appetite for new long-term commitments, the number of first-time mortgage buyers grows more slowly than banks would like. The logic is simple: if it's harder to find new customers, you go after the ones a rival already has.
Refinancing as the new competitive battleground
That's where refinancing comes in - moving an existing mortgage from one bank to another, usually on better terms. It's a tool that has existed for years, but it's rarely been pushed with this much marketing muscle. Some banks have cut the margin they offer specifically on refinancing deals - in some cases below the margin offered to brand-new borrowers starting from scratch. That's a clear signal: banks would rather "steal" a competitor's customer than process a fresh application, which takes more analyst work and carries more credit risk.
What banks are actually offering
It's worth breaking these offers down, because behind the label "refinancing promotion" there are several different mechanisms today, all aimed at pushing customers toward a quick decision.
Lower margins and zero commission
The most obvious hook is a reduced bank margin. Even a small difference - a fraction of a percentage point - can meaningfully change the monthly payment and the total interest paid over a mortgage spread across a decade or more. On top of that, some banks waive the loan origination fee, which under a standard process could run into several percent of the loan amount. Some also drop the fee for early repayment of the original loan, though that cost is usually capped by law after a certain point in the contract's life anyway.
No mandatory life insurance and a free property valuation
The second element involves concessions on additional collateral requirements. Some banks running refinancing promotions drop the requirement to buy life insurance as a condition of getting the loan - even though that's often standard in a regular mortgage offer. Then there's the free property valuation, which normally costs the customer a few hundred zloty and is often one of the first expenses that discourages people from switching lenders at all.
Cash bonuses for applying within a set window
The most aggressive tool is a straightforward cash bonus paid to customers who submit a refinancing application within a tightly defined period - often just a few weeks. It's a classic sales tactic: time pressure is meant to force a decision faster than the customer could otherwise compare offers from other lenders. If you're weighing this kind of move, before signing anything it's worth comparing current mortgage refinancing offers in an independent ranking, rather than settling for whichever offer happened to land in your inbox first.
When refinancing genuinely pays off
A promise of a lower margin alone isn't enough to judge whether switching lenders actually makes financial sense. You need to weigh the full balance of costs and benefits.
The margin gap has to be real
The key question is: how much lower is the new margin, really, compared with what you're paying now? If the difference is only symbolic, and the promotional perks - no commission, free valuation - only apply in the first year before standard fees kick back in, the whole move might never pay for itself. You need to run the numbers over the entire remaining loan term, not just the first few months after switching.
Switching costs that are easy to overlook
Moving a mortgage isn't a free operation, even with a generous promotion attached. You need to factor in any early-repayment fee still owed to your current bank (if the contract still allows one), the cost of registering and deregistering the mortgage lien in the land registry, notary fees for the new collateral, and sometimes the cost of new property insurance required by the new bank. These items can eat up a large share of the savings from a lower margin, especially if the remaining loan balance isn't very large anymore.
What to watch out for - the traps in refinancing promotions
Marketing rarely spells out the conditions under which you lose the perks, so it's worth reading the promotion's terms and conditions just as carefully as the loan contract itself.
Time windows and conditions for losing the bonus
Cash bonuses and preferential margins are often tied to meeting additional conditions for the entire duration of the promotion - for example, actively using a current account at that bank, setting up salary deposits there, or keeping a minimum number of card transactions per month. Dropping those products partway through the contract can mean losing the reduced margin and reverting to a higher rate, and in extreme cases, having to repay part of the bonus you already received.
Cross-selling that quietly raises the real cost
The second catch is bundled selling. A bank that advertises dropping mandatory life insurance may, in practice, strongly push - or tie its best margin to - other products: property insurance from a designated insurer, a credit card, or a savings account with a minimum balance. Each of these carries its own cost, which isn't always obvious at first glance in the marketing message, but weighs on the household budget just as much as a higher loan margin would.
How to check whether refinancing makes sense for you
Before deciding to switch banks, it's worth working through a few concrete steps instead of acting on the strength of an advertising slogan alone.
- Ask your current bank for the exact current early-repayment terms and check whether, and how much, that fee applies to you.
- Calculate the difference in your monthly payment and total interest over the full remaining loan term, not just the first promotional year.
- Add up all the extra costs of the new loan - valuation, insurance, notary and court fees - against the promised savings.
- Read the promotion's terms carefully: what happens if you drop an additional bank product after a year or two.
- Compare several offers at once, rather than reacting only to whichever offer reached you first.
A good starting point is an independent comparison of offers, free of the time pressure a single bank is putting on you - you can start by browsing current mortgage and refinancing offers, and if you're also considering consolidating other debts at the same time, it's worth checking the personal loan rankings as well, especially if your mortgage refinancing is meant to come with extra financing for renovation work.
Summary
The mortgage refinancing price war comes down to simple math: with interest rates frozen and demand for new mortgages weaker, it's easier for banks to poach a competitor's customer than to generate demand from scratch. For borrowers, that's good news - competition is genuinely lowering the cost of refinancing. The bad news is that some of these offers are designed to get you to decide quickly and under time pressure, without carefully totaling up every cost and condition involved. Before you sign anything, calculate the real difference in your payment over the entire remaining term, check the switching costs, and read the promotion's terms from start to finish. Refinancing can genuinely ease your household budget - but only when the decision is based on the numbers, not on when the promotion expires.