Hungarian General Credit Bank

The Hungarian General Credit Bank (Hungarian: Magyar Általános Hitelbank, MÁH, German: Ungarische Allgemeine Kreditbank, also known as Creditbank) was a major bank in Hungary, from its establishment in 1867 by the Rothschild family until its nationalization in 1948.

History

Background

The Rothschild family was involved early on in financing operations in Hungary, including by providing a sixth of the equity capital for the construction of the iconic Széchenyi Chain Bridge and refinancing its cost overruns in the 1840s. In 1857, the Rothschild-sponsored Creditanstalt bank opened a branch in Pest.

Austro-Hungarian era

The Hungarian General Credit Bank had its shares first traded on the Vienna Stock Exchange on 24 August 1867, ahead of its formal registration by the Hungarian Commercial and Exchange Court of Pest on 15 September 1867. In 1871, it took over the local branch of Creditanstalt. In 1873, it received a mandate from the recently created finance ministry for a range of transactions, which made it effectively the main banker of the Hungarian government; that role was reinforced and extend by successive acts in 1886, 1901, and 1915. In the 1890s, under Zsigmond Kornfeld's leadership, the Creditbank became increasingly autonomous from the Austrian Creditanstalt.

By the early 20th century, the Creditbank had acquired a dominant position on the Hungarian banking market. It acquired the First Hungarian Industrial Bank (Hungarian: Első Magyar Iparbank), which had been established in 1864. In 1912 during the Balkan Wars, it created an affiliate in Zagreb, the Croatian General Credit Bank (Croatian: Hrvatska sveopca kreditna banka), of which it retained overwhelming majority control until 1945.