In July 2005 the Sejm [Lower Chamber of the Parliament] of the Republic of Poland adopted the act on the amendment to the Civil Code Act and the amendment to some other acts, aimed at the protection of small credit takers against usury practices. It can be viewed as a comeback to legal solutions adopted in 1924. Then, after a period of hyperinflation, a similar law became the instrument for lowering interest rates and protection against usury. It was supposed to remain in force for one year. Actually, it was prolonged for several years. What changed was the level of the maximum rate: from the initial 24% to 9.5% since 1932. While in 1924 the maximum rate was two-three times lower than the market rate, in the thirties they became equal.

The law on usury forced banks to lower the interest rates, but it also brought many negative effects. It limited the functioning of the market, pushed some of the unsatisfied demand to unofficial market, hampered the functioning and development of private banks. Therefore it triggered sharp criticism, mainly from the banking sector, widely supported by liberal economists. Supporters of etatism initially accepted this solution, but at the end of the thirties they decided that it had fulfilled its role and should be abolished.

The legal regulation of acceptable interest rates on credits survived till 1989. Until 1964 the maximum rate amounted to 9.5%, then 12%, and in the context of 1989 inflation it was raised to 120%. After October 1989 governments stopped determining it presumably on the assumption that the imposition of the price of credit would infringe the principle of freedom of contracts. The protection of the debtor against "abuse" was supposed to rest on the general institutions of civil and penal law.

The problem of regulating the price of credit reappeared in 2004, and a year later the Sejm passed the above-mentioned act. According to its provisions, the price of credit cannot exceed the fourfold lombard rate of the National Bank of Poland. The construction of the today`s rate is therefore different from the one of the pre-war period, and so is its relation to market interest rates.