Net interest revenue rose 8% to HUF 1.193 tln, while net revenue from commissions and fees also increased 8% to HUF 678 bln, state news wire MTI reported Tuesday.
Net trading income jumped 127% to HUF 68 bln, while banks booked a HUF 98 bln gain on net exchange rate differences, up 17%.
Total operating revenue of the sector rose 19% to HUF 2.101 tln, while operating costs climbed 15% to HUF 1.320 tln.
The sector released HUF 58 bln of risk provisions in 2018, after making provisions of HUF 18 bln in the previous year.
The lending stock of Hungarian banks rose 10% to HUF 25.439 tln in 2018. The stock of deposits climbed 8% to HUF 33.728 tln.
The sectorʼs non-performing loan (NPL) ratio fell from 7.5% to 5.4%.
Domestic ownership still over 55%
The market share, based on total assets, of domestically controlled credit institutions reached 55.4% at the end of 2018, edging down slightly from 55.7% twelve months earlier. Hungaryʼs government set a goal in 2013 to raise the domestic ownership rate in the banking sector to at least 50%, recalled MTI.
The MNB classifies nine lenders as “large banks” in the fresh data, one more than in 2017, with the addition of Bank of China Limited Hungarian Branch to the list. The other large banks – all banking groups – are CIB, Erste, K&H, MKB, OTP, Raiffeisen Bank, TakarékBank and UniCredit. MKB, OTP and TakarékBank are the only domestically controlled groups among them.
