National Bank of Hungary refocuses on price stability and core tasks and highlights new accords to simplify and reduce household banking fees

In remarks to the Budapest Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Large Enterprise Club, National Bank of Hungary Governor Mihály Varga set out the new management’s priorities, centring on achieving and maintaining price stability while improving the efficiency, transparency and practical usefulness of the central bank’s work. The central bank will focus more tightly on its statutory core tasks and streamline other activities, alongside closer cooperation with economic and financial market participants. Varga cited heightened external risks for Hungary’s outlook, including the protracted Russian-Ukrainian war, a global tariff war and stagnation in the German economy, with renewed recession and inflation risks amid rising global uncertainty. He referenced the central bank’s March forecast of inflation of 4.5% to 5.1% and gross domestic product growth of 1.9% to 2.9% for the year, while noting that the tariff war could alter this trajectory. Two recent cooperation initiatives were highlighted: a six-point agreement with the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry covering joint analysis of economic processes to support sustainable development and the practical application of theoretical knowledge, and a five-point agreement with the banking sector aimed at making banking costs simpler, more transparent and cheaper by strengthening customer information and reducing fees for certain household financial services, described as having an indirect disinflationary effect.