Hungary is sixth among ten Central and East European countries in terms of ratios of non-performing loans (NPLs), auditing partnership PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said in a release on Thursday.

Bank level NPLs - late on payments for at least 90 days - amounted to EUR 4.3bn at the end of last year, more than twice of EUR 2.2bn at the end of 2008. Total bank level loans amounted to EUR 72.4bn, 6.5pc less than at the end of 2008, thus bank level NPL ratio more than doubled to 5.9pc from 2.8pc a year earlier.

In the retail mortgage sector, total loans grew 2.2pc to EUR 15.9bn from EUR 15.6bn, NPLs more than doubled to EUR 1bn from EUR 400m, thus NPL ratio increased to 6.3pc from the end-2008 2.6pc.

Corporate and non-retail total loans totalled EUR 47bn at the end of last year, 10.2 pc less than EUR 52.4bn at the end of 2008. NPLs in this sector grew to EUR 2.5bn from EUR 1.4bn, resulting in a ratio of 5.3pc after 2.6pc at the end of 2008.

International and local analyses show that the re-start of overall economic growth will not solve the problem of NPLs on the short run, credit portfolios can deteriorate even after economic growth begins, Hungary director of PwC, Gyula Bunna commented. Unemployment still grew in Q1 this year and its impact will show in paying ability with a delay of 6 to 9 months, Mr Bunna said.