The Crowdfunding Act provides for work on the process of determining a substitute for the WIBOR rate in the form of new risk-free rates based on O/N (overnight) transactions. A national working group has been established in July 2022 to prepare a roadmap for the smooth and safe implementation of the various elements of the process leading to the replacement of the WIBOR interest rate reference index with a new reference index.
The steering committee of the national working group, at its meetings on 25 August and 1 September 2022 held a discussion and decided on the WIRON index (Warsaw Interest Rate Overnight) as an alternative interest rate benchmark, whose inputs are information representing O/N (overnight) transactions with financial institutions and large companies.
WIRON has been published since the beginning of August 2022, and is expected to become a key interest rate benchmark under the BMR, which will be used in financial contracts (e.g. loan agreements), financial instruments (e.g. debt securities or derivatives) and by investment funds (e.g. in setting management fees). The administrator of WIRON within the meaning of the BMR is WSE Benchmark SA, listed in the register of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).
In the course of the work of the national working group, the identification, prioritization and estimation of the time-consuming tasks required to be carried out by market participants in order to correctly and safely replace the previously used WIBOR reference indexes with the new index was carried out.
In 2023, it is planned to review the prerequisites set forth in Article 23c(1) of the BMR, which are the basis for the Minister of Finance to designate by regulation a replacement for the key WIBOR reference index. Under the Finance Minister’s Regulation, the replacement will apply to contracts and financial instruments that meet the prerequisites indicated in the BMR. The Finance Ministry’s Regulation will also define the weighting coefficient (the so-called „spread”) and the date from which the replacement will be applied.