The COVID-19 pandemic seems to be the most important phenomenon observed from March 2020 in virtually all countries of the world. The necessity to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and keep health care systems efficient resulted in the forced, drastic limitation of economic activity. Many service sectors were hit particularly hard with this but industry and agriculture were also affected. In particular, the pandemic substantially influenced financial markets and we can observe that some markets or instruments vary in stability since they have been affected in the different degree. In the paper, we present the problem of stability of stock markets during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the low number of works related to CEE countries during the pandemic, we analyze the Warsaw Stock Exchange, which is one of the most important markets in the CEE. Our main goal was to find how various industries represented by stock market indices have reacted to the COVID-19 shock and consequently which sectors turned out to keep stability and remained resistant to the pandemic. In our investigation, we use two clustering methods: the K-means and the Ward techniques with the criterion of maximizing the silhouette coefficient and six indicators describing stability in terms of profitability, volume, overbought/oversold conditions and volatility. The results of the research present that during the pandemic it was possible to identify 5 clusters of sector indices in the short term and 4 in the medium term. We found that the composition of the clusters is quite stable over time and that none of the obtained clusters can be univocally considered the most or the least stable taking into account all the analyzed indicators. However, we showed that the obtained clusters have different stability origins, i.e. they vary from each other in terms of the investigated indicators of stability.

Insufficient environment protection may have serious ecological consequences, resulting in a number of problems in the modern world, many of which are a direct result of human behavior. Therefore, one needs to limit negative ecological effects by consciously shaping environment-related behaviors. The present paper analyzes the declared attitudes of individuals when it comes to taking into consideration pro-environmental factors, including energy, consumption, and waste. We have also studied the social awareness of the socially responsible investment idea, as well as pro-ecological individual behaviors related to private finance. Our survey study, conducted on a representative sample of 1030 Polish respondents, shows that participants’ individual features have little impact on pro-ecological decisions, and that declared pro-ecological attitudes are not reflected in actual behaviors. Polish consumers are still not active enough in making decisions concerning pro-ecological actions, first of all, in terms of energy and waste. As a result of the conducted research, we suggest increasing all activities in the field of environmental policy that could increase the participation of society in facilitating sustainable development.

Foreign currency loans (FCL) have been commonly used in many developing countries in Europe since 2005-2006. In particular, they were granted to retail clients to finance purchasing of real estate. As interest rates in many Central and Eastern European countries were permanently higher than in Switzerland and the Eurozone, the domestic as well as foreign owned banks had started to sell mortgages in foreign currencies, predominately in Swiss francs and euros. Due to reduced interest such loans turned out to be substantially cheaper and easier to get than loans denominated in domestic currencies. In fact within 2-3 years they gained a substantial and in some cases dominant share in domestic credit markets of CEE. Because repayment of FCL is strictly dependent on the exchange rate of foreign currencies, the considered loans had exposed a large group of domestic borrowers to fx risk which they could not effectively hedge. Such risk became very serious in countries like Poland and Hungary with a clear floating exchange rate regime and substantial share of FCL among bank assets. As far back as 2008, and then in 2011 the fx risk related to such loans strongly materialised due to an unexpected rise of the valuation of the CHF and to a lesser extent the EUR.The goal of this paper is to present the phenomenon of using foreign currency loans in Poland and Hungary for purchasing real estate where such loans concentrate a substantial share of banking assets. The authors will present the nature, conditions and premises of taking such loans and will use a comparative analysis between Poland and Hungary. The paper will also contain an analysis of the influence of such loans on borrowers, banking sectors and systemic risk in both countries. The authors will provide statistical analysis of the exchange rate of PLN and HUF to present the potential of fx risk of FCL. Finally the paper will describe legal and financial supervision solutions applied in both countries to diminish the risks related to the loans

Niniejszy artykuł dotyczy problematyki zagrożeń, ryzyka oraz korzyści finansow ych generowanych przez walutowe kredyty mieszkaniowe udzielane w Polsce we franku szwajcarskim. W szczególności opracowanie koncentruje się na sytuacji kredytobiorców, w tym na określeniu zagrożeń oraz korzyści osiąganych przez nich na tle finansowania w PLN. W pracy przedstawiono szczegółowo znaczenie i rolę walutow ych kredytów mieszkaniowych w sektorze bankowym, a także scharakteryzowano rodzaje ryzyka obciążającego banki oraz osoby zaciągające kredyty w CHF. Na potrzeby pracy przygotowano model porównawczy spłat y kredytów w CHF i PLN oraz przeprowadzono analizę korzyści finansowych osiąganych przez kredytobiorców zaciągających kredyty frankowe w latach 2006–2009 na tle osób finansujących się w walucie krajowej.