Bank Pekao is considering a name change, but not within the next year

Pekao CEO on a Possible Name Change and the Fate of the Polbank Brand

The CEO of Bank Pekao, Cezary Stypułkowski, admits that the bank is reviewing its name and logo, because the scale of confusion with PKO BP is significant. In an interview with Bankier.pl, he says that more than 40 proc. of customers confuse the two names. At the same time, he says there will be no change in the coming year.

The bank chief says the problem is not just about how the name sounds. It is also about how the brand is recognized and whether it properly communicates the institution’s identity. In his view, a responsible management board has to deal with such issues, especially when research shows the bank is sometimes mistaken for its competitor at the very first stage of association.

Stypułkowski recalls that in Pekao’s history, an important role was played by a motif linked to serving Poles abroad. The bank was once meant to be something like Western Union for Poles, and today it wants to refer to that tradition in a modern way. As he stresses, the bank is looking for a way to combine its history with an image of an institution open to travel and customers’ international experiences.

The interview also touches on Polbank. The CEO explains that he personally applied for protection of the brand because he considered it valuable and worth safeguarding. As he points out, he did not do this to make money from it. He paid the formal costs himself and does not intend to sell the brand to the bank, but to hand it over.

When asked about the cost of the research and analysis, he gives a brief answer: they are not large sums for a bank, although he does not disclose the exact amount. He adds that the analyses have already been completed, and awareness of the brand’s weaknesses is high within the bank. The next stage is to choose a specific course of action, but no decision has been made yet.