Mateusz Morawiecki announced the figure at a news conference in Warsaw, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
He reiterated the benefits of the programme, saying that borrowers with mortgages taken out to meet their own housing needs "can have four monthly payments postponed in 2022 and four more in 2023, at no additional cost.”
He added: “It’s a very important programme and more than half a million families have already joined it within two days of its launch.”
“Some 2 million mortgage borrowers are eligible for this form of assistance,” Morawiecki also said.
‘Mortgage holidays’
Launched on July 29, the programme allows people with housing loans in the Polish currency to apply for the postponement of four mortgage instalments in 2022 and a further four in 2023, at no additional cost.
Morawiecki said on Tuesday that the programme, dubbed “mortgage holidays,” could cost banks some PLN 20 billion (EUR 4.2 billion).
He added that the programme posed “no danger” to the profitability of Polish banks, which he said were on course to post “huge profits this year.”
He warned that banks would be punished by regulators for failing to comply with the mortgage relief programme, the PAP news agency reported.
Morawiecki told reporters: “The mortgage holidays are an appropriate policy response to the troublesome geopolitical situation and the economic crisis which has hit all of Europe.”
“We are a government that never leaves citizens without help,” he declared.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, gazetaprawna.pl