Central bank fines Altus Portfolio for unauthorised lending

The National Bank of Hungary (NBH) on Monday said it fined Altus Portfolio 15 million forints (EUR 46,000) for lending without a licence.

In a probe covering a period of two years, the NBH discovered Altus Portfolio had lent almost 400 million forints to both retail and corporate borrowers.

Altus Portfolio is owned by Ferenc Gyurcsány, the former prime minister of Hungary, public records show.

For that matter, two years ago the metropolitan court of appeal has ruled in favour of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in a lawsuit former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány brought against him. The ruling concerning Gyurcsány’s company, Altus, overturned the court of first instance’s ruling in Gyurcsány’s favour.

Altus was the leader of a consortium which won a 1.5 billion forint (EUR 4.8m) contract with the EU to prepare studies on the use of EU funding in Hungary. Orbán had argued that the EU contract was a covert form of party financing and the company should have never been awarded it.

Featured image: MTI

Source: MTI