The concept known as FX settlement risk (aka Herstatt risk) came into focus some thirty years ago when Bankhaus Herstatt, a small German bank, became insolvent leaving its counterparties with credit exposure equivalent to the nominal value of receivables in US dollar from FX transactions, for...

This paper gives a reassessment of the sustainability of the reformed Hungarian pension system with a special focus on whether the introduction of the fully funded pillar in 1998 has led to any improvement in the sustainability of the pension system. After a brief description of the 1997/1998...

This paper investigates the main individual driving forces of Hungarian household credit risk and measures the shockabsorbing capacity of the banking system in relation to adverse macroeconomic events. The analysis relies on survey evidence gathered by the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB) in January...

This study aims to analyse the sensitivity of capital requirements to changes in risk parameters (PD, LGD and M) by creating a ‘model bank’ with a portfolio mirroring the average asset composition of internationally active large banks, as well as locally oriented smaller institutions...

The subject of our study is market liquidity, which is an important element of the functioning of financial markets. Adequate liquidity of markets is of great significance from the point of view of both market participants and the central bank. On the one hand, of all market segments an...

The three papers in this volume investigate the same subject matter, the procyclicality of banking sector behaviour, from three different perspectives. The first paper of the volume focuses on some regulatory aspects of banks’ procyclical behaviour. The second paper deals both with the depth...

This paper estimates traditional and New Phillips curves for Hungary over the sample period 1995Q1 to 2004Q1. It presents the first structural Phillips curve estimations for a New EU Member State economy. We find that Hungarian inflation dynamics can be reasonably well described by a standard...

This paper analyses the development of the three segments of the interbank money markets in Hungary and the euro area: unsecured lending/deposit transactions, sale and repurchase agreements (repos) and FX swaps. Reviewing the experiences of some eurozone members the authors draw conclusions on...

There is ample empirical evidence on the presence of structural changes in financial time series. Structural breaks are also shown to contribute to the leptokurtosis of financial returns and explain at least partly the observed persistence of volatility processes. This paper explores whether...

From the last quarter of 2001 to the third quarter of 2005 the real price of oil increased by 103%. Such an increase is comparable to the one experienced during the oil shock of 1973. At the same time, the behaviour of real GDP growth, Consumer Price inflation (CPI inflation), GDP Deflator...