A consumer-watchdog ruling that matters to anyone who takes a loan "on the spot" from a seller
On 30 September 2026, Poland's Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) issued a decision that, at first glance, looks like it concerns a narrow corner of the market: financing for solar panel and heat pump installations. In practice, though, the case touches a mechanism that several hundred thousand people in Poland run into every year — a loan taken out not at a bank on the customer's own initiative, but "on the spot," through the seller of the goods or service. The regulator fined the bank Inbank almost PLN 4.69 million for the way it treated customers who tried to withdraw from a purchase contract financed by one of its loans.
What went wrong: a tied loan the bank treated as an ordinary cash loan
At the heart of the case is the difference between an ordinary cash loan and a tied loan — a distinction that sounds like a legal nuance but, in practice, decides who is on the hook for the money when a deal falls through. A tied loan is, by definition, one that finances a specific product or service named in the contract, and the bank's money never reaches the consumer's own account — it goes straight to the seller, for example the solar-panel installer or heat-pump supplier. Poland's Consumer Credit Act grants special protection for such contracts: if the customer withdraws from the purchase contract, they automatically withdraw from the linked loan as well, and the money should be settled between the seller and the bank — not between the bank and the consumer.
According to UOKiK's findings, Inbank, which partnered with networks selling solar installations and heat pumps, failed to classify a portion of such agreements as tied loans even though they met the statutory criteria. The result: when a customer backed out of a purchase — say, because the installer missed the installation deadline or the equipment simply did not work — the bank demanded full repayment of the loan from the consumer, even though the money had never landed in the consumer's own account and had gone straight to the seller instead. Per the regulator's position, it was the seller, not the customer, who should have returned the funds.
Why this matters even if you are not installing solar panels
The "loan from the seller" mechanism is not limited to solar panels. Loans for windows, furniture, home appliances, bespoke kitchens or turnkey renovations work exactly the same way — the seller offers a ready-made loan from a partner bank, the customer signs the paperwork almost at the kitchen table, and the question of whether it counts as a tied loan interests no one as long as everything goes smoothly. The trouble starts only once something goes wrong: the installation company goes bankrupt, the goods turn out to be faulty, or the customer simply changes their mind within the statutory withdrawal period.
The Inbank case highlights four things worth remembering before you sign a loan like this:
- Check in the contract whether the money goes to the seller rather than your own account. If it does, that is a signal you are dealing with a tied loan and you are entitled to extra legal protection.
- Withdrawing from the purchase should automatically "unwind" the loan. You should not have to repay the loan yourself if you pull out of the deal within the statutory period — it is the seller who settles with the bank, not you.
- Do not sign anything in a hurry at the seller's table. You have the right to take the paperwork home, read the terms, and check whether the same loan is available on better terms directly from the bank, without the distributor's margin baked into the price of the installation.
- Put every complaint in writing. If the seller misses a deadline or the equipment does not work, the complaint should go in writing to both the seller and the bank — this makes it far easier to assert your rights later.
This is not an isolated case
UOKiK has been scrutinising the market for loans sold alongside the purchase of a specific product for several years now, precisely because that is where disputes over refunds after contract withdrawal happen most often. The regulator has repeatedly stressed that the burden of correctly classifying a loan should not fall on the consumer — it is the bank, designing such a product together with a distribution network, that is obliged to label it properly and apply the right settlement rules. The Inbank case shows that even large financial institutions treat this classification carelessly when it is convenient for them to do so.
What this means for your own financial decisions
The practical lesson for a BankSorter.com reader is this: financing arranged "through the seller" is rarely cheaper than a loan you choose yourself, and it can be far harder to control once something goes wrong. Before agreeing to a loan proposed by an installer or equipment seller, it is worth checking the current ranking of the best cash loans yourself — the difference in APR between a "bundled" offer and a loan taken directly from a bank can sometimes run to several percentage points, because the distributor's margin is baked into the cost of financing.
The second takeaway is that large, one-off purchases — solar panels, a heat pump, a renovation — do not have to be financed with a loan from day one. If the purchase is not urgent, spreading it out over time and setting money aside in a term deposit or savings account can be a way to avoid any dispute over who owes whom. It is worth checking the deposit ranking and the savings account comparison regularly, so the money you set aside does not just sit idle, losing real value to inflation, before the time comes for the bigger purchase.
What happens next with the Inbank case
UOKiK's decision is not yet final — the bank has one month to appeal to the Court for the Protection of Competition and Consumers, so the final size of the fine could still change. The PLN 4.69 million penalty will go to the state budget, not to the affected customers' accounts — an important distinction that often gets lost in the headlines. Anyone who believes a bank settled with them unfairly after they withdrew from a loan-financed purchase contract should file an individual complaint with the bank, and, if that is refused, take the case to the Financial Ombudsman, who resolves such disputes free of charge for the consumer.
What you should do
If you are planning a purchase financed by a loan offered through the seller — solar panels, windows, furniture, home appliances — do three things before you sign anything. First, ask outright whether it is a tied loan, and ask for that to be stated in black and white in the contract. Second, compare the cost of that financing with offers available on the open market yourself, using BankSorter.com's comparison of cash loans. Third, if the expense is not urgent, consider delaying the decision by a few months and building up the funds using a term deposit or a savings account — a simpler and safer way to finance a large purchase than relying on a loan whose detailed settlement rules you may not be able to control if something goes wrong with the seller.