Prime Minister Péter Magyar called on MBH Bank and Lőrinc Mészáros, who has ties to business interests with stakes in the lender, to reinstate a charity programme benefitting children from low-income households with good grades in a post on Facebook on Monday.
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Magyar said that the International Children’s Safety Service had announced that MBH Bank had pulled support for the programme, after 32 years, while moving forward with the construction of a new corporate headquarters, “in an untransparent manner”, at a cost of more than HUF 100bn.
In the name of the state of Hungary, which is also a stakeholder in MBH Bank, Magyar called on Mészáros and MBH Bank to publish the details of the new HQ, including the plans and the name of the general contractor, MTI wrote.
MBH Bank, Hungary’s second-largest commercial lender, is listed on the Budapest Stock Exchange. A little more than 25pc of the bank’s shares are in free float.
Péter Magyar wrote in a Facebook post that Mészáros’s bank had helped 100 low‑income, high‑achieving students under a programme it now plans to cancel.
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The bank responded
The scholarship was open to outstanding students from families whose per‑capita monthly income was below HUF 55,000 (about €151). Recipients received HUF 800,000 a year (roughly €2,200), equivalent to around €183 per month.The bank’s full‑year profit for 2025 stood at HUF 240 billion (€661 million).
In response to a statement by the International Children’s Safety Service, the bank said it was “baffled” that the organisation had taken the matter to the press. MBH Bank stated that its decision to withdraw from the programme had been made last year and that the organisation had been given a year to prepare for the consequences. The bank did not respond directly to Péter Magyar’s remarks, but added that it had spent “tens of millions of forints” on the scheme in recent years.
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I hate banks but they are a private enterprise and for the government to make public statements about what this bank should do with its money is outrageous. It’s something worthy of a third-world banana republic.
Stay in your lane, “Peti.”