BUDAPEST: The European Central Bank has been monitoring several programmes launched by the National Bank of Hungary “which could be perceived as being potentially in conflict with the monetary financing prohibition,” the bank said in an annual report released on Thursday.
The ECB said it was following up on concerns raised in its annual report a year earlier that the programmes, which are not related to monetary policy “could be viewed as the [NBH] taking over state tasks or otherwise conferring financial benefits on the state”. “As the ECB’s concerns were not dispelled in the course of 2015, the ECB will continue to closely monitor these operations with a view to ensuring that their implementation does not result in a conflict with the prohibition of monetary financing,” the ECB said.
The programmes monitored by the ECB include real estate investment purchases, a programme to promote financial literacy through a network of foundations, the transfer to the central bank of staff formerly employed by financial market watchdog PSZAF and a programme to purchase national art treasures.
