It was equally important for us to incorporate in the document the voices of our stakeholders, whose opinions we considered as guidance in defining strategic objectives for the coming years. In this way, with the involvement of many Bank units, including the Management Board, the final shape of the Strategy was approved by the Supervisory Board.
Resilience analysis of Pekao Group’s Strategy and business model [SBM-3]
Changes in the regulatory environment related to sustainability, implementation of supervisory institution recommendations, observation of market practices, as well as growing stakeholder expectations (including those of investors and clients) require us to systematically increase engagement in ESG matters, including, inter alia, adapting internal procedures and incorporating ESG matters into product, credit and investment processes. Hence our decision to include these matters as an integral part of the Pekao Group’s development activities in the Strategy published in 2025.
Material impacts, risks and opportunities and their interrelationships with the strategy and the business model
The double materiality assessment (DMA) carried out in the previous reporting year provided material information that enabled us to better understand the impact of the Pekao Group’s activities on the environment and society, as well as to assess how these factors translate into business opportunities and potential financial risk. Building on the results of this analysis, we were able to define development directions more accurately and determine the shape of policies and actions intended to ensure sustainable growth, financial resilience and the Group’s responsible operation in a changing market and regulatory environment. We assumed that the Strategy is to respond to environmental and social challenges and, at the same time, enable full utilisation of emerging development opportunities. Detailed information on priorities and the approach in the new strategic perspective is provided in SBM-1.
We inform the Bank’s administrative, management and supervisory bodies about the opinions and interests of key stakeholders in relation to our sustainability-related impacts. We provide this information as part of the adopted reporting and internal communication processes, enabling stakeholders’ perspectives to be taken into account in strategic decision-making and ensuring effective oversight of the achievement of ESG objectives.
As part of the impact assessment, we considered a breakdown into:
- type of impact (positive/negative),
- place where the impact occurs (value chain (mainly through the loan portfolio) / organisation),
- timing of the impact: actual (currently occurring) / potential (may occur in the future), and across three-time horizons covering the following periods:
- short (1 year),
- medium (from 1 to 5 years),
- long (over 5 years).
We carried out the financial materiality analysis in relation to opportunities and risks for the business model, value chain, strategy and decision-making process across:
- three-time horizons covering the following periods:
- short (1 year),
- medium (from 1 to 5 years),
- long (over 5 years, in particular at least 10 years for the analysis of the materiality of risks – in accordance with the EBA Guidelines on ESG risk management),
- with a breakdown by the place where the impact occurs (value chain (mainly through the loan portfolio) / organisation).
The table below presents the most important impacts, risks and opportunities that we identified as part of the update of the double materiality assessment in 2025.
Material impacts, risks and opportunities and their interrelationships with the strategy and the business model
Resilience analysis of Pekao Group’s Strategy and business model in terms of our ability to counteract material adverse impacts and risks and to leverage material opportunities
In the second half of 2025, we carried out a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the resilience of our Strategy and business model to material adverse impacts and risks, taking into account the context of our ability to leverage material opportunities (hereinafter: the “resilience analysis”).
As a first step, for each material adverse impact, we verified whether incidents of materialisation of a given adverse impact had occurred over the last five years and examined the effect of those incidents on the stability and profitability of our operations. Depending on the nature of the adverse impact in question, we considered:
- the cumulative increase in provisions over the period under review, in connection with the incident in question,
- the result of the analysis of mass customer complaints in relation to the relevant matter,
- the result of the analysis of mass court claims filed against Pekao Group in connection with the relevant matter,
- verification as to whether the PFSA imposed an additional capital requirement on the Bank due to the incident.
Subsequently, for each adverse impact we analysed:
- the scope of remedial and preventive actions implemented, and
- remedial and preventive actions planned to be implemented, relating in particular to Pekao Group’s strategic objectives, as well as projects underway within Pekao Group.
We also considered whether, during the double materiality assessment, we assessed the risk linked to a given adverse impact as material. Assessing a given risk as not financially material through the double materiality assessment confirmed for us that the risk does not affect the resilience of our Strategy and business model. Where a material risk linked to a given impact was identified, we verified whether the remedial and preventive actions implemented or planned mitigate that risk sufficiently to ensure the resilience of our Strategy and business model.
Based on the resilience analysis performed, we conclude that Pekao Group’s Strategy and business model are resilient to material adverse impacts and sustainability-related risks over the time horizons indicated by ESRS.
We describe details of the remedial and preventive actions we undertake in respect of material adverse impacts and risks in the relevant thematic chapters of this Statement.
As indicated in the description of our approach to conducting the double materiality assessment, based on the analyses carried out, we identified one material adverse impact and one material climate-related risk – both relating to our loan portfolio.
The material adverse impact concerns Pekao Group’s financing of activities that generate greenhouse gas emissions, in particular high-emission investments. The material risk linked to that impact concerns climate-related transition risk (transformational risk), i.e., a potential decline in the debt-servicing capacity of high-emission entities over the long-term time horizon due to higher regulatory costs and shifts in demand towards a low-carbon economy.
Given the long-term perspective of the materiality of climate risk, we examined our resilience to the identified climate risk using climate transition risk stress tests on the Bank’s loan portfolio credit risk, developed by the Bank for the first time in the second half of 2025. Stress tests were performed solely for the Bank, due to the material share and scale of its loan portfolio within the overall Group. The loan portfolios of the other Pekao Group companies are immaterial from a climate risk standpoint and therefore were not covered by a separate resilience analysis.
For this purpose, we estimated the increase in expected credit loss provisions over a three-year horizon, using assumptions from the short-term climate shock scenario developed by the NGFS (Network for Greening the Financial System) entitled “NGFS Short-term Climate Scenario – Diverging Realities (DIRE)”, which we calibrated using expert judgement and overlaid on the baseline macroeconomic scenario. NGFS short-term scenarios are a tool enabling a structured analysis of the direct (almost immediate) effects of climate policies and climate change on financial stability and economic resilience. These scenarios also capture the macroeconomic effects of climate-related physical risk. In our view, they allow for an understanding of possible extreme adverse financial effects resulting from potential shock regulatory and technological actions aimed at the transition towards a low-carbon economy, which may occur across different time horizons – particularly over the long-term time horizon.
The estimated increases in provisions under the shock scenario of the climate stress tests do not pose a threat to the Bank’s financial result or the Bank’s capital adequacy.
Taking the above into account, as well as the fact that in this year’s EBA stress test exercise our Bank was among the most resilient to stress factors among the 64 European banks included in the sample, we consider our Strategy and business model to be resilient to the material adverse impact and the associated material climate-related risk. Nevertheless, we bear in mind that the long-term perspective of climate change projections and the volatility of the regulatory and technological environment mean that any estimates of their impact on credit risk are subject to a significant degree of uncertainty. Accordingly, we will perform climate risk stress tests on a regular basis, using the most up-to-date and most appropriate assumptions available in order to estimate as accurately as possible the potential effects of climate risk on our financial position.
We describe details of the remedial and preventive actions we undertake in respect of material climate-related matters in the chapter ESRS E1: Climate change. Our Transition Plan is a particularly important tool we have implemented to further build our resilience to climate risk is. We describe the assumptions of the Plan in the above-mentioned chapter of this Sustainability Statement. We assess that, as a Group, we have the capacity to adapt our Strategy and business model to climate change over the short-, medium- and long-term.
We began the resilience analysis in relation to material opportunities by mapping the material opportunities we identified to our strategic objectives set out in the Strategy. As a next step, we analysed whether and how we act proactively to leverage material opportunities related to sustainability. For this purpose, we considered:
- what business actions and innovations are undertaken within the organisation as part of a proactive approach to leveraging the given opportunity,
- whether and how the achievement of strategic objectives is monitored regularly,
- what actions we assume would be taken if the achievement of a given strategic objective were at risk
Based on the resilience analysis performed, we conclude that we actively leverage the material opportunities related to sustainability that we have identified, which contributes to building the resilience of Pekao Group’s Strategy and business model over the time horizons indicated by ESRS.
We describe details of the actions we undertake to leverage material opportunities related to sustainability in the relevant thematic chapters of this Sustainability Statement.