From WIRON to POLSTR: how Banqsoft’s resilient system design is paying off in Poland

Reform of Poland’s benchmark interest rate has unfolded in stages. WIRON was initially introduced as a transaction-based reference rate to support the move away from estimate-based interbank benchmarks. As market experience accumulated, authorities reassessed WIRON and instead selected POLSTR as the preferred standard.

Administered by GPW Benchmark, a subsidiary of the Warsaw Stock Exchange Group, POLSTR is fully compliant with the EU Benchmarks Regulation. The standard is published daily based on wholesale market transactions, with the aim of reducing short-term volatility in pricing and providing a cleaner risk-free reference rate.

For Banqsoft, the confirmation of POLSTR raised two immediate and practical questions. Would the team’s work already done to support a customer's transition to WIRON need to be revisited? Or would another benchmark shift translate into additional system changes?

“When POLSTR entered the discussion, my first reaction was to wonder if all the work we had done on WIRON would need to be repeated. We had spent so many hours on that implementation,” explains Michal Sejmicki, Head of Development for Asset Finance at Banqsoft in Gdańsk.

“But after reviewing the new transition with the team, it became clear that we could reuse the same implementation just by adapting the configuration. This is exactly the kind of flexibility we’ve built into the Banqsoft platform,” he says.

A platform designed to handle change

Rather than hard-coding assumptions about a single benchmark rate, the Banqsoft platform had been designed to support change at the system, product and contract level. When POLSTR was confirmed, that approach paid off. The underlying ingestion logic, compounding mechanisms and contract handling already supported the necessary structures.

Customers can define when rate changes take effect during the month, controlling whether adjustments are applied retroactively or only going forward. Different rules can be set across product portfolios, with the integration layer handling how those variations are reflected across connected systems.

“When we implemented WIRON in the Banqsoft platform, we knew benchmark reform would continue to be a moving target across Europe. The aim was not to optimize for a single rate, but to give customers control over timing, validity and calculation logic,” explains Banqsoft Product Manager, Andreas Willmark.

This flexibility mattered for Banqsoft’s customer in Poland. Having already implemented WIRON in a live vehicle-financing environment, the move to POLSTR needed to be handled without disrupting existing contracts, billing cycles or customer communication. The Banqsoft platform enables that continuity by isolating the benchmark change from surrounding processes.

Benefits in Poland and beyond

From a market perspective, the adoption of POLSTR reflects a broader push toward stability and transparency. By relying on wholesale transaction data, the benchmark reduces exposure to estimation-based volatility. This aligns Poland more closely with other reference rates, including SOFR in the United States and SONIA in the UK.

For lenders in Poland, the introduction of POLSTR means more predictable pricing behaviour and a reduction in the number of exceptional situations that require manual handling. That stability is particularly important for asset finance portfolios, where contracts often run for years and small changes compound over time. The same benefits are now becoming relevant in other markets, as national reference rate benchmarks continue to mature. Systems that treat rates as configurable components – rather than fixed assumptions – are better positioned to adapt. The ability to change rates through configuration rather than development shortens project timelines and reduces delivery risk.  “Once reference rates are established, the challenge shifts from replacement to managing change. Systems need to be built with that in mind from the outset. Rate timing and validity need to be handled as configuration – not as code,” explains Willmark.

For more information, please visit www.banqsoft.com 

------------------