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Formative years
In 1929, the CEO of Pocztowa Kasa Oszcz?dno?ci, Henryk Gruber, observed that there was a demand for a bank that could provide financial services to the eight million Poles living outside the country. Starting from these assumptions, on March 17, 1929, the Ministry of Finance established Bank Polska Kasa Opieki Spó?ka Akcyjna. On October 29 of the same year, the Warsaw District Court entered Bank Polska Kasa Opieki SA in the commercial register. The company's shareholders were Pocztowa Kasa Oszcz?dno?ci, Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego and Pa?stwowy Bank Rolny.
The first branches were opened in France, Argentina, and the United States, and in Tel Aviv . By 1939 Pekao had branches in the capitals of most countries where Polish emigres had settled.
People's Republic of Poland
After the end of World War II and the beginning of the Soviet domination in Poland , the bank took care of international financial operations conducted by the authorities of the newly established Polish People's Republic. With the bank's help, the Poles who live abroad could support their families behind the Iron Curtain. In 1968, the Minister of Finance authorized the establishment of foreign currency accounts for persons working abroad in Bank Pekao. Monopoly on their conduct Pekao lost only in 1989 with the onset of economic reforms that swept in Poland and the communist bloc.
In the 1970s, currency accounts in Pekao were divided into three categories: Account A for people paying currencies with documented origin, B accounts for payments with undocumented origin, and C accounts for foreigners. The funds from B accounts could not be legally exported abroad, but in 1976 the rights of A and B accounts were leveled. In 1974, the bank had around 91,000 registered accounts. At the end of the 1980s, the total value of foreign currency accounts was US$3.3 billion.Much earlier, in 1960, the bank began issuing its own vouchers, "Bon Towarowy PeKaO", denominated in US dollars. Initially, for these vouchers it was possible to buy both foreign and deficit domestic goods in the foreign sales network operated directly by Bank Pekao. The offer of the bank for individual clients included a variety of goods covering, among others, groceries , alcohol, cosmetics, textiles, household appliances, bicycles, motorcycles, cars, trucks, tractors, agricultural machinery, fuel, building materials, installation and sanitary equipment, and also apartments and furniture. This retail network was created with the establishment of the Pewex "internal export" company, in 1972 out of the bank's structures.On 3 August 1999, Pekao became a member of the UniCredit company.In December 2016, Polish state-owned PZU together with Polish Development Fund acquired Bank Pekao – Poland's second largest bank previously owned by Italian bank UniCredit by buying a 32.8% stake in the bank for the amount of PLN 10.6 billion .
