In recent years, the Polish economy has been expanding strongly, with more and more families having money to spend and save, providing significant demand for financial services. As a result, firms such as BRE Bank are responding with new ideas. In 2001, it launched MultiBank, an up-market institution aimed at the country’s rising middle class.

From nothing five years ago, MultiBank has since become one of Poland’s leading online banks with an affluent and growing clientele. MultiBank realised, however, that it needed more than just an Internet link and a call centre if it was to become a trusted institution in its own right. So now the bank has 60 branches throughout the country, many of them in Poland’s thriving regional towns.

“We wanted to combine the best in friendly banking with the latest in new technology,” says Bartosz Brzozowski, a director at the parent BRE Bank. To achieve this, the bank set about creating a network of branches that were in tune with the aspirations of its affluent customers. Modelled on the homes of its clients, MultiBank’s branches smack more of Ikea than the premises of a traditional, high street bank.

The reason is simple. “Everything is designed to have a positive impact on the customer,” says Mr Brzozowski. While there are machines for dispensing and handling cash, much of the branch is given over to comfortable areas where customers can browse through brochures and meet representatives of the bank.

With the housing market in Poland taking off, many of MultiBank’s customers are eager to take out mortgages. Others are interested in the bank’s credit cards or stockbroking services. Many such products break new ground. For example, the bank’s credit cards can be secured against a customer’s home, so giving the bank extra security and the borrower a keener interest rate. Off-set mortgages and accounts which consolidate a customer’s banking and stockbroking are also becoming more common.

Yet an increasing amount of cash still circulates in Poland’s banking system – partly, it seems, because of the rise of the shadow economy and higher taxes. Does this mean that banks will continue to rely on their branches to handle cash? Yes and no, according to Mr Brzozowski. To cut costs, institutions are encouraged to introduce new technology, such as machines that accept used bank notes and re-issue them to customers wanting cash. But in the long run the branches of up-market institutions such as MultiBank will concentrate less on transactions and more on dispensing advice and selling high-value products and services to the most demanding of customers.