The environment in which retail banks operate in the developed western countries has been undergoing considerable social, economic, regulatory, technological and other changes (e.g. those relating to customers´ attitudes). These changes have basically produced two effects: on one hand, barriers to entry to the banking services market have been lowered, allowing non-bank financial institutions to enter. On the other hand, banks have expanded their activities into segments of the financial market which were previously of no interest to them (i.e. capital and money markets, insurance).

In effect, competition in the financial market is intensifying. At the same time, the market is gradually opening as legal, economic and other restrictive barriers are being lifted. Both trends force retail banks to change their traditional way of business and undertake marketing operations on both a strategic and tactical scale.

The paper seeks to determine whether the trends described above are observable in Poland and to evaluate their impact on the need for marketing activity on the part of retail banks.

The author provides an analysis of various elements which make up the macro-environment of Polish retail banking (general economic, political, regulatory, social, demographic, technological and others). The analysis indicates that the macro-environment has been rather unstable in the recent years. Various (sometimes contradictory) trends have been observed. However, they have hardly resulted in a two-way opening of the markets. While the evolution is conducive to banks entering new financial services markets, the barriers preventing "outside institutions" from encroaching on the banks´ territory remain in place - unlike in western countries. In effect, banks are protected from tough "outside" competition which would force them to intensify the marketing effort.