Poland's CFD Market Shrinks to Two Bank Brokers as mBank Exits Retail Forex

mBank's Withdrawal and the Narrowing Domestic CFD Landscape

Polish daily Parkiet reported that mBank's brokerage division will no longer permit clients to open new forex or CFD positions starting October 1. The bank halted the signing of fresh mForex contracts on September 3, and from the first of October customers will be limited to winding down any positions they already hold. The institution stated it intends to redirect its efforts toward products that support long-term savings and capital accumulation for its client base.

The decision removes one of the last major bank-owned CFD providers in the country. According to Parkiet, mBank joins a growing list of domestic houses that have already pulled out of retail foreign exchange, including Erste's brokerage arm, BM PKO BP, BM ING BSK, and Noble Securities. With mBank's departure, only Dom Maklerski BOŚ (the brokerage of Bank Ochrony Środowiska) and the brokerage unit of Alior Bank remain among traditional Polish banks still offering the product.

Leadership change at mBank's brokerage has accompanied the strategic shift. Maksymilian Skolik, who had headed the division for seven years, departed at the end of June and is expected to take the helm at BM Pekao, Parkiet noted.

Two Brokers Step Up as the Market Expands

The exit arrives at a moment of rapid growth. The Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF) recorded 369,737 active clients trading over-the-counter derivatives through domestic brokerages in 2025, a 50-per-cent jump from 246,826 a year earlier. Polish residents accounted for 186,372 of those accounts, representing a 59-per-cent increase. When the national total was closer to 175,000 in 2023, Poland already outperformed every European market except the United Kingdom in terms of active retail derivatives traders.

DM BOŚ has confirmed it will continue its CFD business and has been broadening its product set. Sebastian Zadora, director of the firm's financial-instruments sales department, told Parkiet that the brokerage has rolled out MetaTrader 5, expanded its range of crypto CFDs, and widened leveraged trading in Polish-listed equities, including the ability to short sell. Zadora described CFDs as "a profitable business and a segment we definitely want to keep developing."

BM Alior Banku, the other remaining bank-affiliated provider, declined to comment to Parkiet on the future direction of its forex offering.

XTB's Dominance and Foreign Entrants Reshape Competition

The label "traditional" understates the scale of the market's largest participant. XTB, a KNF-licensed brokerage house, managed 1.235 million of the 3.03 million securities accounts registered on the Polish market at the end of August, according to Central Securities Depository of Poland (KDPW) data cited by Parkiet. In August alone, XTB added 53,600 new accounts out of 61,500 for the entire market, while mBank's brokerage, second with roughly 577,000 accounts, added around 5,500. XTB's monthly intake had dipped to 48,226 in May before rebounding.

Chief Executive Omar Arnaout disclosed in February that only 7 per cent of XTB's new clients in 2025 placed a CFD as their first trade, yet CFDs still generate approximately 95 per cent of the firm's revenue.

Jakub Paturalski, managing director of XTB Polska, told Parkiet that growing general interest in financial markets is expected to attract investors who want to trade a portion of their capital more actively. "In our view, the Polish forex market still has room to grow," he said. Paturalski also urged regulators to apply rules with greater consistency so that Polish firms paying domestic taxes compete on product and technology rather than on supervisory gaps relative to foreign providers. He did not name any specific competitor, but Parkiet noted that Revolut serves Polish investors under a Lithuanian licence and therefore falls outside KDPW's account tally, while Trade Republic entered the Polish market in September 2025 operating under a single German licence.

Regulatory Risk and Client-Protection Concerns

Industry insiders warn that the principal risk has shifted. Zadora told Parkiet that aggressive telemarketing was the sector's chief problem a few years ago, but the more pressing concern now is the cross-sell of CFDs to clients who originally opened accounts for ETFs or IKE and IKZE retirement vehicles intended for long-term savings. He cautioned that if brokers fail to draw a clear line between complex derivatives and straightforward investment products, the industry risks triggering tighter regulatory intervention on its own.

That warning carries particular weight given the KNF's March decision to fine XTB 20 million zlotys. Among the regulator's findings was that the broker had treated a client's experience with simple instruments as sufficient grounds for assessing suitability for CFDs between January 2022 and September 2023.

Broader activity data also paint a nuanced picture. Warsaw Stock Exchange figures show that 444,100 accounts executed at least one trade in the first half of 2026, roughly double the level seen three years prior, Parkiet reported. On the CFD front, however, 72.2 per cent of active clients finished 2025 in the red, a figure within the 70.6-to-79.1-per-cent band the KNF has tracked since 2021. The aggregate losses of losing clients amounted to 2.68 billion zlotys, nearly four times the combined gains of those who profited.

For Polish traders, mBank's exit narrows the pool of domestic, bank-backed CFD providers to two, while a single non-bank brokerage and an increasing number of foreign-licensed platforms account for the bulk of new account growth. The coming months will test whether the remaining players can balance product expansion against the regulatory expectations and suitability obligations that the KNF is clearly tightening.