FHB Bank Gains Most in One Week on Loan Growth: Budapest Mover

FHB Jelzalogbank Nyrt. (FHB), a Hungarian mortgage lender, gained the most in more than a week after Napi Gazdasag reported the bank expects a surge in new loans.

The shares rose 1.1 percent to 479 forint by the end of trading in Budapest, the most since Aug. 22. The benchmark BUX stock index dropped 0.2 percent.

FHB’s new lending may rise by “at least 50 percent according to the most pessimistic scenario” thanks to a subsidised interest rate program, Chief Executive Officer Laszlo Harmati told the newspaper in an interview published today.

Hungarian household mortgage rates are set to drop and demand for credit will probably rise as a result of state interest-rate subsidies on housing loans, the central bank said in a quarterly lending survey published yesterday.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andras Gergely in Budapest at agergely@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Gavin Serkin at gserkin@bloomberg.net