The paper deals with the current activities and the growth perspectives of the Stock Exchange in Warsaw, seen against the backdrop of its history, the impulses which have contributed to its development as well as barriers it is facing now. The regulations which lay at the foundations of the Warsaw Stock Exchange, defining its scope of activity, include the following elements: the Exchange's organisational structure, conditions for admission to trading, the rules of sale, purchase and valuation of shares. At a certain stage of the institution's development, these regulations proved to act as inhibitors to its growth.

The paper seeks to identify the regulatory and legal elements which have become obsolete, and whether the recently proposed amendment to the Act on Securities Trading will be able to solve the problems the Stock Exchange is grappling with. Undoubtedly, one of the reasons why the institution is at a standstill manifesting itself in the waning interest from investors, especially foreign ones, is its low liquidity. Liquidity, measured by the free float, can only be restored if stock trading is liberalised, through measures such as extending the band for admissible price fluctuations, or a more flexible treatment of the capital market by the Treasury. The growth in this market cannot occur without the liquidity the Warsaw Stock Exchange seems to need so much. Such measures can provide a new impulse for the Polish exchange, hopefully making it more attractive to those who are currently in the direst need of investment capital - Polish small and medium enterprises.