On 18 September 1998 the Congress of Cooperative Banks was held in Warsaw at the initiative of the National Association of Cooperative Banks. About 800 persons participated, including many representatives of the cooperative banking.

The Congress was held under the headline "Today and tomorrow of the Polish cooperative banks", and the major reason for the Congress was the Resolution of the Banking Supervision Commission of 5 August 1998 that introduced the capital requirement of ECU 300,000 to be achieved by end-1999.

The speakers put particular emphasis on the following issues:

1. up to now reforms of the cooperative banking sector and their obligatory nature;
2. current situation of cooperative banks, their material status and financial potential;
3. cooperative banking in the European Union (an attempt to determine elements best suited in the Polish context);
4. system and model of the organizational structure for cooperative banks in the nearest future;
5. role and place of Bank Gospodarki Żywnoœciowej (BGŻ) in further development of the cooperative banking;
6. BGŻ privatization path;
7. functioning of cooperative banks in line with the banking and cooperative laws;
8. possible solutions and ways to gather required capital of ECU 300,000 in the requested time;
9. chances and threats for further development and functioning in the context of the market economy and increasing competition of commercial banks;
10. role of cooperative banks in the development of local authorities, in particular in rural areas.

Given diversity of problems, bankers did not find solutions to all the issues. All agreed that the cooperative movement in banking had played, and still should play, an important role in the national economy. The Congress participants recognized a need to introduce necessary changes to the organizational structure of the cooperative banking as a whole and to the activity of single banks, counting on the assistance and indulgence of the state in respect to some matters.