Powszechna Kasa Oszczędności Bank Polski Spółka Akcyjna (also known as PKO Bank Polski S.A., PKO BP S.A.) is Poland's largest bank founded in 1919. It provides services to individual and business clients. The core business activity of PKO Bank Polski is retail banking. The full Polish name roughly translates to "General Savings Bank". Popularly, only the acronym "PKO" is used by clients. With 1,145 branches located in Poland and abroad and a market capitalization of PLN 52 billion (EUR 12.6 billion equivalent) as of 2018, PKO BP Group is among the largest financial institutions in Poland and is also one of the largest financial groups in Central and Eastern Europe. History On February 7, 1919, by the order of the Head of State Józef Piłsudski, the Postal Savings Bank was created. Its first director was appointed on December 28, 1919, Hubert Linde. For many years during the Second Polish Republic, Henryk Gruber was the president of the PKO. With time, a bank's head office was established in Warsaw with headquarters at ul. Świętokrzyska 31/33 and the first local branches: in Kraków, Lwów, Łódź, Poznań and Katowice. The first goal of the PKO was to introduce the Polish zloty into circulation instead of the Polish mark (as a derivative of the German mark). From 1920, the bank had a legal personality as a state institution. The employees of the funds were associated in the Association of Postal Savers Workers, which had their own wheels at larger branches, e.g. in Warsaw, in Łódź. During the German occupation of Poland, in the Second World War, Bank Polski operated under German management. In 1945, the cash register activity was resumed. On January 1, 1950, the Postal Savings Fund was liquidated, and its agencies were taken over by the General Savings Bank (). In 1974, the PKO offer was enriched with a savings and settlement account for natural persons (commonly known as ROR). From 1975 to 1987, the PKO branches operated within the structures of the National Bank of Poland, retaining their identity. On November 1, 1987, PKO Bank Polski became an independent bank again, as part of the economic reforms implemented by the communist government of Poland in its last years. In 2019, they were announced the title sponsor for the Polish Ekstraklasa. Operations Today (as at the end of 2015) PKO Bank Polski employs around 29,000 people and has a full-year net profit