Socialists: FX loan conversion rate fair at 2010 rates

Budapest, May 12 (MTI) – The government’s ill-conceived economic policies have weakened the forint, so the conversion of FX loans should have been carried out at 2010 rates, the opposition Socialists said on Tuesday.

Head of parliament’s budget committee and Socialist lawmaker Sandor Burany told public news channel M1 citing a recent survey by portfolio.hu that two-thirds of people interviewed said they were disappointed about the result of loan conversion.

Some 5-8 percent said their monthly instalments dropped by 20-30 percent, as earlier promised by the ruling Fidesz party.

Burany said this has revealed that it was the forint’s weakening, not the interest-rate policies applied by banks, that was the main reason for borrowers’ losses. He added that thanks to the Socialist governments’ successful crisis management efforts, the euro stood at around 260 against the forint and the Swiss franc around 180 in 2010. After five years of Fidesz government, the rates are currently 303 and over 290, respectively, which shows that Fidesz’s measures failed to resolve the main problem, he said.

The conditions of the government’s bailout package for forex borrowers included a conversion rate of 192 forints to the Swiss franc, a Fidesz spokesman told M1. If one is considering conversion at 2010 rates, it must be added that interbank forint interest rates stood at 5.47 percent then, compared with today’s 1.7 percent, Bence Tuzson said. He said most people were not disillusioned with the way accounts had been settled and to those who were, he would suggest turning to the Financial Mediation Board with a complaint.

Source: http://mtva.hu/hu/hungary-matters