During the European Financial Congress (EFC), Marcin Mikołajczyk, Deputy Chair of the KNF, took part in the debate: ‘Protecting the financial sector and its customers from online gambling black market activities’. 

Key points addressed by Marcin Mikołajczyk:

• It is important that payment institutions exercise due diligence when verifying their clients. However, we’re aware that entities operating in the black zone use various mechanisms in order to pose as legally operating firms, thus attempting to ‘whitewash’ their activities.
• The black gambling market is dynamic, you could even say it’s a ‘runaway market’,  which hinders effective actions based on laws and regulations in force. In this context, it’s worth reminding that apart from the Act on gambling, the Penal Fiscal Code , and the Act on combating money laundering and terrorist financing, the critical legislative acts include also the Banking Law.
• The issue of illegal gambling requires not only further analyses, but also, first of all, effective enforcement of the existing laws. The use of modern technologies can turn out to be of key importance here, for example for the real-time monitoring of the market or for the ongoing updating of the domain register.
• We are an active supervisor, we act within our remit, but the effective control and supervision require a joint commitment from both national and international institutions.