FenTiger

My wife told me over the weekend her sister wanted to set up a bank account in the UK. Her husband had transferred alot of his savings to a Swiss bank account because he was concerned at the state of the Hungarian banks. I have not seen anything in the media about any serious problems Hungarian banks were having.

Unfortunately to set up a UK bank account you need to be a resident here with a UK address. Correct?

klarika

That is correct.

fidobsa

Most of the big banks operating in Hungary are not actually based here. Also mass panic withdrawals from Hungarian banks due to concerns about their potential collapse will be a self fulfilling prophesy.

Rural Hungary

Hi Fen, to my knowledge there was never any concern over banks collapsing - had savings continued to be withdrawn or transferred then this might have become a concern but that isn't what started the stampede to the banks.
As I understand it, people including, I'm assuming, your sister-in-laws husband, withdrew and transferred savings for two reasons. Firstly, they were concerned that their savings might be lost due to the changes relating to the central bank in the new constitution. Coming not long after the nationalisation of the private pension funds, the concern was understandable but in my opinion, unfounded(I won't droan on about the difference) and now that Orban has agreed to abandon his plan to merge the central bank and PSZAF hopefully people will feel reassured that there is no immediate danger of the state taking hold of their savings.
Secondly, over the past 12 months or so, the forint has been losing value and due to recent concerns and events there was quite a dramatic drop in value earlier this month. Subsequently, the cumulative effect of the rumours, protests in Budapest, recent history and the drop in the forint was to create panic and thus the withdrawals and transfers. If the forint continues to strengthen as it is currently, this will again hopefully allay peoples fears.


Regards UK banks, as Klarika says, you do need a UK address - what about an offshore account?

OGSG

Any recommendation for online HUF accounts please? Are there any that are online & free like in the UK, myself I am not aware of any.
Thanks.

bronty

There is always some sort of promotion going on, but free banking (there are exceptions) can be obtained if you become a 'Premium' customer. This entails keeping a minimum amount of money in your account at all times. I think it is about 7 million forint, regardless of what sort of account it is in, i.e. current, savings or bond. I expect conditions will vary for each bank, but the principle is the same. There is also an advantage that you are given priority when in the bank without waiting in line.

OGSG

A rather large amount to keep in HUF!

scrubbedexpat0105

I have no basis for comparison with other Hungarian banks, but I'm quite happy with K&H. It isn't free but the charges are trivial, e.g. 50 Forint for a direct debit transaction (this is for a very basic HUF account, no debit card). They have online banking; they didn't want to give it to me because my Hungarian was very rudimentary when I opened the account (slightly less rudimentary now), but if I'd insisted I expect I'd have got it. My bank statements are sent to me in Germany and are in German. English may be possible but I don't know. You don't have to be a resident, or at least you didn't when I opened the account, in 2005.

OGSG

Thanks for that. Link to English version https://www.kh.hu/publish/kh/en/products_services.html