The MNB (Hungarian National Bank) has published statistics on non-performing retail loans that suggest a potential credit crunch. Based on these, there were EUR 0.5bn of household loans overdue for more than 90 days at the end of September. According to statistics these are most likely to be the 57% of retail loans that were subject to the repayment moratorium given by the government for the time of the COVID-19 crisis. The official moratorium is to be lifted as of January 1st, and will only be valid for a select group of people – students, pensioners, unemployed and civil servants – meaning everyone else, even if they had their wages halved (1 in 3 Hungarians), will have to start repaying the banks.
