The government expects the banks to pick up small business loans in exchange for the tax reduction

Rogán Antal, the parliamentary group leader of Fidesz, mentioned the condition of the bank tax reduction that the banks to start up the lending to the small and medium-sized enterprises, which – as he said is one of the prerequisites of the economic growth.

Rogán Antal called it symbolic that the Hungarian government acquires a 15 percent stake in Erste Bank, which would then be not a financial institution, which merely represents Austrian interests.

Erste pledged to launch a EUR 550 million lending programme, and as the bank tax-to-total balance sheet ratio will fall to 0.31 percent as of 2016, the bank’s costs will be some HUF 60bn lower. However, he stressed that even so the Hungarian bank tax rate still remains “quite high”. (MTI)