Warsaw looks to win more finance business in wake of Brexit

By Marcin Goclowski

WARSAW, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Poland's deputy prime minister isdue to meet a string of banks in London this week as the countrytries to boost its status as one of Europe's fastest growingfinancial centres and benefit from Britain's decision to leavethe European Union.

Poland has already attracted a number of financial investorssuch as UBS, Credit Suisse, Bank of NY Mellon and HSBC, whichhave opened large back office operations.

It is hoping to build on that by attracting more banks,especially in areas such as risk management and IT services.

"We're not without a chance when it comes to luringinteresting investors to the so-called middle office, or backoffice," Deputy Prime Minister and Economy Minister MateuszMorawiecki told private broadcaster TVN24 on Tuesday.

"But there are also highly-paid development functions suchas risk management, IT management, information management, datamanagement. These are very important and interesting corporatefunctions."

Morawiecki believes Poland, which will be the biggest noneuro-zone economy in the EU once Britain leaves, could be a goodpartner for British financial firms by offering them access tothe single market.

Big financial firms London are losing faith in a quick fixto get access to the EU after Britain leaves and are drawing upcontingency plans.

European heavyweights Germany and France have played downhopes of an easy deal to keep London's financial hub intact andFrankfurt, Paris, Dublin, Luxembourg, Milan and Amsterdam arevying to woo UK-based firms.

According to one government source, Morawiecki will fly toLondon on Wednesday evening ahead of meetings with dozens offirms, including Barclays, Credit Suisse, BNP Paribas andCitibank, as well as pension funds and hedge funds.

"There is a slight increase in financial firms' interest inmoving to Poland from the City but it is still hard work toattract them as Poland is not in the euro zone. Their primaryoptions are places like Brussels, Amsterdam," a seniorgovernment source said.

Morawiecki will also participate in meetings Poland'sbiggest bank, state-run PKO BP, has organised withinvestment funds.

Poland is betting its relatively fast-growing economy andbelow-average salaries will attract new players. But investorswill have to consider rising policy uncertainty as the rulingconservative Law and Justice party (PiS) moves to introduce morestate control over the economy.

This month, rating agency Moody's said a constitutionalcrisis in Poland was threatening its relationship with theEuropean Union and investors. (Additional reporting by Wojciech Zurawski in Krakow; editingby David Clarke)