Loans of around EUR 2.1bn were disbursed to Hungarian banks during the second quarter of the year from the IMF loan approved for Hungary last autumn, the latest quarterly report by the National Bank of Hungary (NBH) said.
All the loans approved by the government were to be drawn in two instalments, and were disbursed by the end of June, with the exception of the second instalment of a HUF 170bn (close to EUR 600m) loan to state-owned development bank MFB, according to Econews information. MFB requested to receive its second instalment only by the end of 2009.
The government has approved to grant loans of a combined EUR 2.4bn from the international loan package to four Hungarian banks without foreign parents — OTP Bank, FHB, and state-owned MFB and, through MFB, to its subsidiary Eximbank — to back their lending activities in the global liqudity squeeze, according to earlier information.
The government approved at the end of March the granting of a EUR 1.4bn loan to OTP Bank and a EUR 400m loan to FHB Bank at market rates and expiring in November 2012 as well as a loan of HUF 170bn (close to EUR 600m) to MFB in the middle of April. Eximbank announced in May it will take out a EUR 142m, most of it from the IMF loan through cooperation with its parent bank MFB.
Last autumn, the IMF, the European Union and the World Bank approved a combined EUR 20bn in loans for Hungary to help the country withstand the effects of the global financial crisis.