When bankers themselves start looking at the future with more caution, it is worth paying attention – even if your daily contact with banking is mostly through a phone app. In September 2026, the PENGAB index – a survey of bank management sentiment, published regularly by the Polish Bank Association (ZBP) on the bank.pl portal – came in at 29.4 points. That is a drop of 1.9 points compared with August. The number alone means little to the average reader, but what lies behind it matters for anyone planning to take out a mortgage or open a term deposit in the coming months.
What PENGAB actually is, and why it is worth following
PENGAB is not another macroeconomic indicator calculated by analysts from hard statistical office or central bank data. It is a survey in which bank managers themselves assess how their business looks right now, and how – in their own judgement – it will look in six months. In other words, it is a thermometer of sentiment among people who have access to internal data on their institutions' loan and deposit portfolios before that data ever reaches official statistics.
That is why PENGAB is often treated as a leading indicator: before a bank actually tightens its mortgage lending criteria, or lowers the interest rate on term deposits, the attitude of that bank's decision-makers usually worsens first. September shows exactly that kind of signal – and in a very specific place.
Better right now, more cautious about the future
The September reading has two parts, and the comparison between them is the most interesting thing here. The index of current assessments rose by 1.2 points, to 26.2 points – meaning bankers currently rate their business slightly better than a month earlier. The index of forecasts for the next six months, however, fell by as much as 5 points, to 32.5 points. That is a substantial move for a single month, and it shows that optimism about the sector's near-term future has clearly weakened, even though the "here and now" is not bad at all.
Importantly, the improvement in current assessments does not apply evenly across all segments. Banks today rate consumer loans, investment loans, corporate working-capital loans and corporate deposits more favourably. What deteriorated – and this is the core of this piece – were mortgage loans and household deposits, precisely the two products an ordinary customer deals with day to day, not a company's chief financial officer.
Why mortgages and household savings specifically?
It is no coincidence that the decline in assessments concentrated exactly in the retail segment. Poland's mortgage market has for months been operating under the shadow of uncertainty about further interest-rate moves, the cost of long-term funding, and demand for housing at current property prices. Banks that grant mortgages for twenty or thirty years today have to calculate risk far more cautiously than for a three- or five-year cash loan – hence this segment's greater sensitivity to any signal of economic uncertainty.
The situation with household deposits looks similar, just from the other side of a bank's balance sheet. Institutions that expect changes in interest-rate policy already need to plan today how much they will be willing to pay for retail customers' deposits six months from now. When forecasts in this segment deteriorate, it usually means one thing: the sector expects that over the coming months the attractiveness of the standard retail deposit offer is more likely to shrink than to grow.
What this means in practice for your wallet
Here we move from theory to specifics, because an index reading alone has never helped anyone pay off an instalment. Treating September's PENGAB data as a leading indicator yields two practical takeaways.
First – if you have been putting off a mortgage decision for a while, hoping that banks will "soon" offer clearly better terms, it is worth re-examining that assumption. More cautious bank forecasts for this segment do not tend to foreshadow a more generous offer in the coming months – if anything, they point the other way. Before committing to a specific path, it is worth comparing current mortgage offers and checking what margins and conditions actually look like today, rather than waiting for a hypothetical improvement that is far from guaranteed.
Second – with deposits, the situation is the mirror image, seen from the saver's rather than the borrower's perspective. If you have cash set aside and are wondering whether to open a term deposit now or wait for a better rate, September's PENGAB is not an argument for waiting. Since bankers themselves rate the outlook for household deposits worse than a month ago, it is hard to assume the offer will improve significantly over the next six months. It is worth regularly checking the ranking of the best term deposits and considering locking in today's terms rather than counting on the trend reversing.
How to read sector sentiment without panicking
An important caveat: a PENGAB reading of 29.4 points is still a positive result – the index is constructed so that values above zero indicate a majority of positive assessments over negative ones. So this is not talk of a collapse in sentiment, but of a clear cooling of optimism, particularly in forecasts. That distinction matters – there is no reason to panic, but there is a good reason not to delay decisions you would have to make sooner or later anyway.
For anyone planning a major financial move – buying a home on credit, moving savings around, switching to a better current account – sector indicators like this are worth treating as one input signal among others, alongside your own financial situation and the specific offers available on the market. Do not base a decision solely on one monthly survey reading, but do not ignore it either – especially when it shows a consistent direction of change in a specific segment, as is the case now with mortgages and retail deposits.
It is also worth remembering that banks' caution toward one type of product often comes paired with greater activity in others – hence the improved assessments in consumer loans and business loans. If you happen to be looking for financing for something other than a home, this is a good moment to review the current cash loan offers, since sector sentiment in that segment is moving in the opposite direction to mortgages.
What you should do
September's PENGAB reading is a signal, not a verdict – but a legible one. Bankers see their business a little better today than a month ago, yet they look at the future with markedly more reserve, and mortgage loans and household deposits are exactly the areas performing worst in those forecasts. If you are planning a mortgage, do not assume terms will "improve on their own" – check what banks are realistically offering right now. If you have savings waiting for a term deposit, do not count on rates suddenly jumping upward – act before any cooling of the offer becomes a fact. Also check our savings account rankings regularly – in a shifting market environment, comparing actual current offers, not guessing the direction of interest rates, is what gives you a real advantage.