“Frankivians paved the way.” What does the CJEU judgment on WIBOR mean for Polish zloty users?

The judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU from February 2026 caused nervous reactions on both sides of the PLN loan market. Some announced that “WIBOR has defended itself” and there will be no repeat of the Swiss franc scandal, others – that the path to mass lawsuits against banks has just opened. When the dust of emotions settles, it is worth taking a look at what this judgment actually changes for holders of WIBOR-based loans.

Key verdict

The key message from Luxembourg can be summarized in three points. Firstly, the mere fact of using WIBOR in a contract is not automatically unfair. Secondly, courts are not supposed to examine the methodology of determining the indicator itself, but they can and should examine the fairness of contractual provisions. Thirdly, the validity of the loan will be determined by whether the bank reliably informed the client about the variable interest rate risk.

It was this last element that resonated particularly strongly in the interview with Anna Wolna-Sroga. The lawyer points out that the judgment is “very favorable for consumers” because the CJEU clearly confirmed the possibility of applying Directive 93/13 to loans in PLN. This is the same EU regulation that Swiss franc borrowers have been referring to for years, demanding the invalidation of their contracts. If the Tribunal decided that in the case of PLN, variable interest clauses cannot be examined at all, thousands of borrowers would be deprived of the chance to dispute with the bank.

However, the judgment does not make WIBOR a “toxic” indicator. The CJEU explicitly stated that banks did not have to explain to customers with technical precision how exactly WIBOR is calculated. This stops the most radical scenarios in which the mere presence of an indicator in the contract would automatically lead to its invalidation. For many lawyers, this means the need to shift the burden of argumentation from attacking the indicator to analyzing specific clauses and information documents.

This is where the ESIS form – European Standardized Information Sheet – comes to the fore. In its justification, the CJEU emphasized that banks were obliged to show the client not only the current level of interest rates, but also how their changes in the past translated into loan installments. In other words: the consumer should get a clear, numerical picture of what will happen to his installment if rates return to the levels of previous decades.

In practice, this is where, according to the expert, space for disputes may open up. In one of the cases, the contract was concluded in 2006. The bank was not able to provide any statement on the risk of changing rates from that period. Only a later form was attached to the file – prepared two years after signing the contract, without the clients’ signatures. On this basis, it is difficult to convincingly prove that the consumer was properly informed about how much his installment may increase.

From the borrower’s perspective, the most important thing is not whether the contract includes WIBOR 3M or 6M, but what the entire information package looked like: the contract, annexes, the ESIS form, the loan application and what was said during the conversations with the advisor. The CJEU reminds that the consumer does not have to be a financial expert – the bank is obliged to explain the risks to him in a complete and understandable way. If he limits himself to “reassuring” assurances and fragmentary data from the last 12 months, he may have a problem in court.

Date on the contract

The judgment also emphasizes the importance of the date of conclusion of the contract. The case considered by the CJEU concerned a loan from 2019, i.e. from the period in which the EU BMR regulation regulating benchmarks was in force. In the case of older contracts – from before 2018 – the situation may be different. Further preliminary ruling proceedings are already underway to determine whether the level of protection in these older contracts should be even higher.

For borrowers, the practical takeaway is twofold. First of all, if they repay a loan in PLN with WIBOR, the CJEU judgment does not mean automatic “write-off” of the debt, but it does not prevent them from going to court. The odds of winning will depend on the specifics: the date of the contract, the content of the ESIS form, the risk statements and what they actually heard from the advisor. Secondly, even if the bank argued in the media that “WIBOR defended itself”, this does not mean that every agreement with WIBOR is impenetrable – the tribunal clearly left room for examining the fairness of the contractual provisions.

In this sense, PLN borrowers can actually benefit from the experience of Swiss franc borrowers. The legal basis is the same, the consumer protection logic is very similar. Only the details are different: the exchange rate has been replaced by a variable interest rate.