Best bank: K&H Bank
Despite the overbearing presence in Hungary of national champion OTP – and the emergence in 2023 of a much larger government-owned lender in the form of MBH Bank – international firms continue to compete in the domestic market. The biggest of these international players is K&H Bank, owned by Brussels-based group KBC.
AfE 2024
K&H reported exceptionally strong growth in earnings in 2023, with profit after tax coming in at Ft108 billion ($290 million), a 60% rise over 2022. Return on equity, meanwhile, reached 22%.
The bank says this exceptionally good performance is due, above all, to rising customer numbers – it grew to almost one million clients – thanks to a steady increase in corporate financing, and to an encouraging bounce in retail lending in the second half of the year despite a sluggish housing market.