MKB Bank

State-controlled bank in Hungary

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Hungarian. (January 2022) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

View a machine-translated version of the Hungarian article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 595 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Hungarian Wikipedia article at [[:hu:MKB Bank]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|hu|MKB Bank}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

MKB Bank

Head office at Váci utca 38, Budapest
Company type	Public
Industry	Finance and Insurance
Founded	1950
Defunct	2023
Successor	MBH Bank [hu]
Headquarters	Budapest, Hungary
Products	Commercial banking,
Website	www.mkbbank.hu

MKB Bank, initially Magyar Külkereskedelmi Bank (lit. 'Hungarian Foreign Trade Bank'), was a Hungarian state-owned bank founded in 1950. It was privatized in the mid-1990s, then renationalized in the 2010s. It eventually merged in the early 2020s with Budapest Bank and Takarékbank to form Magyar Bank Holding, branded MBH Bank [hu], thus creating the second-largest commercial bank in Hungary behind OTP Bank. The complex three-way merger was announced in 2020 and completed in 2023.^[1]

History

MKB was created in 1950 within the communist-era single-tier banking system, in which it was one of the country's four main financial institutions alongside the Hungarian National Bank, the Hungarian Investment Bank (renamed the State Bank for Development in 1972 and liquidated in 1987),^[2]^: 386 and the Hungarian National Savings Bank Company.^[2]^: 382 It took over assets and operations, among others, from the former Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest. The purpose of its establishment was to participate in the international monetary system and manage financial transactions related to foreign trade.

In 1987 Hungary reformed its banking system. MKB received full operational license to service the general population.^[3] It was the first of the top five state-owned banks to be privatized, in 1994-1995 when BayernLB acquired a 25 percent stake, subsequently raised in stages until the mid-2000s. In 2012, having received state aid in Germany, BayernLB was forced by the European Commission to divest its ownership of MKB,^[4] as a consequence of which the Hungarian government took back control.^[5]

In May 2020, it was announced that Budapest Bank and Takarékbank would merge with MKB under the common entity Magyar Bankholding (MBH).^[6] In 2022, MKB absorbed Budapest Bank on March 31,^[1] and later took over the Hungarian loan portfolio of Sberbank.^[7] The merger with Takarékbank was finalized on 30 April 2023.^[1]

Political ties

MKB Bank has financed by loan the campaign of French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen. The asset declarations of France's presidential candidates reveal that she received some EUR 10.7 million in total.^[8]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c "MBH: Second Largest Player in Hungarian Banking Starts Operations". Hungary today. 12 May 2023.
^ ^a ^b Imre Lengyel (April 1994), "The Hungarian Banking System in Transition", GeoJournal, 32:4: 381–391
^ "Az MKB Bank története". 127.0.0.1 (in Hungarian). Retrieved 2022-05-31.
^ Péter Vass (March 2019), "Member banks of the Hungarian Banking Association" (PDF), Economy and Finance (GÉP), 6:1, Budapest: Hungarian Banking Association: 95
^ "Hungary nationalises German-owned MKB bank". ft.com. 24 July 2014. Retrieved 24 January 2017.
^ Marton Dunai (26 May 2020). "Hungary's Budapest Bank joins MKB-Takarek merger as domestic banks grow". Reuters.
^ "MKB Bank Completes Takeover of Sberbank Hungary Loan Portfolio". Budapest Business Journal. 2 August 2022.
^ "France's Le Pen got loan from Hungarian bank close to Orban -filing". Reuters. 2022-03-10. Retrieved 2022-05-31.