BUDAPEST: The National Bank of Hungary (NBH) is paying a dividend of 50 billion forints (EUR 160m) from last year’s earnings into the budget, the central bank told MTI on Thursday, confirming a comment by governor György Matolcsy in daily Magyar Nemzet.
The board decided on the dividend proposal at a meeting on April 27. The NBH said the dividend will reduce the deficit by the equivalent of 0.15 percent of GDP. The central bank last paid a dividend in 2002. The board judged that based on profits accumulated in previous years and with further contributions in 2015 to profit reserves, the reserves have now reached a level which makes paying a dividend possible, the central bank said.
In February the NBH said it had posted a record 95 billion forint profit in 2015. It said at the time that its management was committed to placing all profits into profit reserves, as in previous years. After approval by the board of directors, it said the profit reserves would rise to above 150 billion forints as a result, or almost 0.5 percent of GDP, and the high profit reserves would prevent the need for central budget transfers to make the NBH profitable in the long run.
