Hungarian ‘megabank’ gets green light

A new Hungarian bank is set to emerge from the merger of MKB Bank and Takarekbank as overseen by Magyar Bankholding and approved by the Hungarian National Bank, state news agency MTI reports.

The megabank will be formed on April 30, creating Hungary’s second-largest financial institution, overtaking OTP Bank.

The new institution will operate under the name MBH Bank, and have over 1.5mn retail customers, 300,000 corporate clients, a payroll of nearly 10,000, and a balance sheet total of over EUR 28.4bn.

MBH will operate numerous market-leading banks in niche sectors such as SME lending, leasing and agri-food. Magyar Bankholding said it is preparing for the merger by integrating the two banks’ IT systems.

Magyar Bankholding’s deputy CEO for transformation and operations Adam Egerszegi said by May the bank’s employees should be delivering customer benefits, including a unified product portfolio and upgraded technological infrastructure. He added that it will run information campaigns on the merger via bank statements, emails, websites, and social media.

The previous step in the creation of the megabank took place last spring, when Budapest Bank merged into MKB Bank, as was first announced in 2020.