New CEO at the helm of Hungary’s leading OTP Bank – UPDATED with PM Orbán’s compliment
The board of OTP Bank, Hungary’s biggest commercial lender, has decided to split the roles of chairman and CEO, chairman-CEO Sándor Csányi told shareholders at an annual general meeting on Friday.
Csányi said he would continue as chairman of the lender from May 1, while Péter Csányi, who heads the bank’s digital division, would take over as CEO.
Csányi said OTP had closed its “most successful year ever” in 2024, achieving “outstanding” profitability, while maintaining an extraordinarily stable capital position and continuing as market leader in the region.
Since its establishment, he said OTP had acquired 26 banks, including 14 in the past ten years, and it was market leader in five countries. OTP’s balance sheet has tripled and its loan book quadrupled since 2014, he added.
Orbán: OTP Bank ‘jewel’ of national economy
Hungary’s government will continue to follow a strategy of peace, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at an annual general meeting of shareholders of OTP Bank, the country’s biggest commercial lender, on Friday. Orbán said that strategy of peace could be interpreted as a “strategy of economic prosperity”, too, ensuring that Hungarian companies could do business as dependable partners in all countries, even those along geopolitical fault lines.
He added that OTP was a welcome investor even in geopolitical hotspots, pointing to the lender’s presence in Ukraine and Russia, as well as the Balkans, Moldova and Central Asia.
Orban said that as soon as the war ended, “great opportunities” would open on those markets, benefitting OTP.
He said the performance of OTP from year to year deserved a “hats off”.
Speaking about the government’s principles with regard to the banking sector, Orban said the cabinet always took the side of ordinary people against the more powerful. He added that it was a mistake to view this approach as “anti-bank”, pointing to the need for balance in the financial system, just as in every other important area of life.
That balance, he said, needed to be established by the government, “with the understanding of banks in desirable circumstances”.
Orban said a second principle held that the banking sector was a strategic one for the country, and banks needed to prosper, while a third acknowledged the important role banks play in raising Hungary’s international profile.
Orban recognised the role of the banking sector, especially of OTP, in working together with the government to “defuse the time bomb of FX loans” and said OTP also accounted for the “lion’s share” in state-sponsored student lending and prenatal baby credit schemes. He said that involving the banking sector in a matter of demographic policy was unique to Hungary, adding that the number of prenatal baby loan contracts had reached 271,000.
Orban also acknowledged banks’ involvement with a government programme offering subsidised credit to young blue collar workers and for keeping rates for first-time home buyers under 5pc.
He said the government had achieved its goal of raising domestic ownership in the banking sector to at least 50pc. He noted that target had been set after foreign-owned banks’ funding was pulled in 2008, leaving the local lending market “high and dry”.
Orban said OTP played a “key role” in the local banking system and in the development of the entire country. OTP’s balance sheet, at HUF 22,600bn, is larger than the combined total assets of all of the other Hungarian banks, he added.
OTP’s foreign banks generated 70pc of group-level profit in 2024, a feat unprecedented in Hungary’s economic history, he said.
Orban paid tribute to Csanyi, saying the success of the lender would have been “unimaginable” without him. Csanyi’s work, he said, was proof that a company’s position as a “national champion” could be maintained even after the state ceased to hold a stake in the venture. He added that Csanyi and OTP had not allowed the lender to be bought up, while strategic control remained with the management.
Orban wished similar success for OTP’s new CEO, Peter Csanyi.
Responding to criticism that he drafted regulations for the banking sector, even though he had never been a banker, Orban said Csanyi still headed the Hungarian Football Federation even though he had never played at a higher level.
“The point is, the results speak for themselves,” he added.
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