According to Google, the Polish zloty started the new year with a huge crash. On Monday evening, the euro was worth 5.40 PLN, the dollar 4.83 PLN and the Swiss franc 5.80 PLN. The Polish currency was not so weak even after the start of the war in Ukraine. No wonder it went viral on social media.
Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski said the zloty exchange rate that caused the panic was “false” and “an error in the data source”. “Markets in Asia will open soon and the situation will return to normal,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
The Ministry of Finance said in a statement that it officially asked Google Polska to provide information on the reasons for the false publication of the zloty exchange rate and what actions the company plans to take to prevent similar situations in the future.
Bartoszewicz: It was a terrorist attack in Poland. Secret services must provide information
Dr. Artur Bartoszewicz, an economist, said on Wnet radio that “Polish secret services should enter Google's headquarters and protect the information.”
– When the Polish currency theoretically collapses in front of investors, no one reacts and the Minister of Finance tells us to calm down, it's a mistake, it's surprising to me. In my opinion, we are dealing with a terrorist attack in Poland and we should start talking about it, he said.
He said the whole operation could be a deliberate ploy to weaken the zloty and “get it into our heads that the euro is a safer currency.” – I believe that the Polish state should punish all these portals (displaying false zloty exchange rates – ed.) for spreading fake news and demand from Google all the costs of correcting the falsely provided information – Bartoszewicz said.
Google released a brief statement on Wednesday saying: “Search features, such as displaying currency exchange rates, rely on data from external sources. If inaccuracies are found, we will contact the data providers to correct the errors as quickly as possible.”
Polish National Bank spokesman Wojciech Andrusiewicz said that verified and fully reliable zloty rates are published on the NBP website. As he added, “the schemes presented by Google are not always accurate and reflect reality, and the portal itself is not responsible for their correctness.”