Fourth-quarter net interest income rose two-fold to 3.21 billion zlotys, with net fee and commission income adding up to 672.0 million zlotys versus 695.2 million zlotys last year.

"The year of 2022 was challenging in many ways (...) What impacted our results were regulatory decisions, and (...) booking of additional, significant provisions for (...) mortgages in Swiss franc...", said Leszek Skiba, the bank's chief executive officer.

The net profit for the full year stood at 1.72 billion zlotys, a result lower 21% on the year.

The yearly fall is associated with 2.0 billion zloty cost of payment holidays, and total of 1.6 billion zlotys worth of provision for Swiss franc mortgages.

The government introduced payment holidays for borrowers that allow eight instalments to be postponed in 2022-23, after a series of interest rate hikes, imposed by the central bank to tackle inflation, hit many borrowers.

($1 = 4.3893 zlotys)

(Reporting by Mateusz Rabiega and Adrianna Ebert; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Kim Coghill)