Economics
Hungary Pushes the Limits of Central Bank Asset-Purchase Plans
- Central bank to buy bonds of company its foundation owns
- ECB has expressed monetary-financing concerns in the past
The transaction would come on the heels of a proposal by Governor Gyorgy Matolcsy to provide mortgages directly to prospective homeowners -- testing another taboo about direct lending by central banks.
Photographer: Akos Stiller/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Hungary’s central bank is about to take its $2.5 billion asset-purchase program to the next level as it prepares to buy the bonds of a company owned by one of its entities.
The debt sale under the central bank’s plan, flagged in a corporate filing, may further blur what’s become a hazy boundary on what central banks around the world can and can’t do to buoy economic activity during the global coronavirus pandemic.