The Polish Development Fund (PDF) begins the process of settling and exempting from the obligation to return subsidies to micro-enterprises under the PDF 2.0 Financial Shield. Companies that meet certain requirements can count on 100% redemption.

Entrepreneurs settle the subsidy via electronic banking at the same bank where they applied for support. They will pay the subsidy on a different account than in the case of the PDF 1.0 Financial Shield, and the application forms will not contain a preliminary settlement proposal.

Settlement of the Shield 2.0 for micro-companies will take place in two stages:

• Settlements of micro-companies. From January 19 to February 28, 2022, the PDF will make available a form of declaration of settlement for a micro-company in electronic banking. After this deadline, the form of a statement of the settlement will not be available, and settlement of the subsidy, as a rule, will not be possible.
• Redemption decisions. In April 2022, the PDF will issue one of the three decisions to companies, i.e.: determination of the amount of the subsidy subject to exemption from the obligation to return (including full remission), a call for reimbursement of the entire subsidy, either information that the PDF has identified circumstances that make it impossible to determine the amount of the subsidy subject to redemption. The PDF will then ask the beneficiary for further explanations.

An important difference from the settlement of the PDF 1.0 Financial Shield is that the deadline for submitting the statement of settlement does not take place one year after obtaining the subsidy, and the date of issuing the above-mentioned decisions by the PDF does not depend on the time of submitting the statement.

Billing rules for micro-companies

The total remission of the financial subsidy will be granted to micro-companies that jointly meet both of the following conditions: uninterrupted maintenance of business activity until December 31, 2021, and maintaining the average level of employment in 2021 compared to the number of employees for which it received a subsidy. The PDF will check these conditions automatically based on data from ZUS, therefore the entrepreneur does not attach any documents or certificates to the application.

The form of the statement of settlement for micro-companies contains the account number to which the entrepreneur can pay money from the subsidy if he wants to return it before the decision is issued by the PDF. The repayments made by the micro-company before the date of the PDF decision reduce the balance of the subsidy to be canceled.

Required Statements and Other Information

Companies that did not provide correct documents on the support when applying for a subsidy will find an additional field in the forms, the so-called retrospective statement. By checking them, they will certify that they were authorized to apply for a subsidy. In addition to submitting this declaration, they must provide the bank with documents confirming the authorization within 14 days. Companies will have to confirm on the form that they have made an entry in the Central Register of Real Beneficiaries if they have not done so before. PKD, which the beneficiary enters in the form, is informative. It should provide the company’s leading CACs. It does not have to be related to the list of 54 PKD codes that conditioned participation in the program.

Source: Bank`s press release from January 18, 2022