81-125 Peter Vass.Indd
DOI: 10.33908/EF.2019.1.5 MEMBER BANKS OF THE HUNGARIAN BANKING ASSOCIATION 81 MEMBER BANKS OF THE HUNGARIAN BANKING ASSOCIATION Péter Vass ABSTRACT In its 30 years of existence, the Hungarian Banking Association has witnessed an extraordinary evolution in the banking sector.1 During this period, a total of 93 banks were registered in Hungary (in the form of companies limited by shares or branches), typically 40 to 50 operating at the same time. It was only for special reasons that the number of banks exceeded that upper limit, while it fell below 40 only during the transformation spurt aft er the introduction of the two-tier banking system, during the post-transition bank foundation fever up until 1991, and – seemingly – by surprise, during the bank sector boom in the early 2000s. Th e development and the continuous change of the institutional background has been driven by domestic processes in the fi eld of banking, economy and regulation alike, by the consequences of international structural developments (mergers, strategic partnerships and their dissolution) at the level of Hungarian subsidiary banks as well as by the individual development paths of certain banks. Th e length of this paper does not allow for a comprehensive in-depth analysis of all these motivators, but we consider that presenting the development of each member bank of the Banking Association within a common framework, focussing mainly on current members, would be informative. JEL codes: G21, N94 Keywords: history of the banking sector, banking history, banking sector entries and exits, bank mergers, competition 1 For the purposes of this article, banks and specialised credit institutions under Act CXII of 1996 on Credit Institutions and Financial Enterprises are regarded as part of the banking sector, not including KELER, which performs non-banking activities.
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