By Marcin Goclowski
WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's deputy prime minister is due to meet a string of banks in London this week as the country tries to boost its status as one of Europe's fastest growing financial centres and benefit from Britain's decision to leave the European Union.
Poland has already attracted a number of financial investors such as UBS, Credit Suisse (SIX:CSGN), Bank of NY Mellon and HSBC, which have opened large back office operations.
It is hoping to build on that by attracting more banks, especially in areas such as risk management and IT services.
"We're not without a chance when it comes to luring interesting investors to the so-called middle office, or back office," Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told private broadcaster TVN24 on Tuesday.
"But there are also highly-paid development functions such as risk management, IT management, information management, data management. These are very important and interesting corporate functions."
Morawiecki believes Poland, which will be the biggest non euro-zone economy in the EU once Britain leaves, could be a good partner for British financial firms by offering them access to the single market.
Big financial firms London are losing faith in a quick fix to get access to the EU after Britain leaves and are drawing up contingency plans.
European heavyweights Germany and France have played down hopes of an easy deal to keep London's financial hub intact and Frankfurt, Paris, Dublin, Luxembourg, Milan and Amsterdam are vying to woo UK-based firms.
According to one government source, Morawiecki will fly to London on Wednesday evening ahead of meetings with dozens of firms, including Barclays (LON:BARC), Credit Suisse, BNP Paribas (PA:BNPP) and Citibank, as well as pension funds and hedge funds.
"There is a slight increase in financial firms' interest in moving to Poland from the City but it is still hard work to attract them as Poland is not in the euro zone. Their primary options are places like Brussels, Amsterdam," a senior government source said.
Morawiecki will also participate in meetings Poland's biggest bank, state-run PKO BP (LON:BP), has organised with investment funds.
Poland is betting its relatively fast-growing economy and below-average salaries will attract new players. But investors will have to consider rising policy uncertainty as the ruling conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) moves to introduce more state control over the economy.
This month, rating agency Moody's said a constitutional crisis in Poland was threatening its relationship with the European Union and investors.