This content is from:

Hungary banker

SándorCsányi在家使OTP成为全国冠军。现在他想遍布欧洲,东西和西方的覆盖范围。

    当匈牙利改良的社会主义主导的联盟政府最近决定对银行实施特别税收以帮助缩小其预算赤字,Prime MinisterDesignate FerencGyurcsány寻求与该国顶级银行家SándorCsányi的观众​​。Gyurcsány去了OTP银行总部的银行家,而不是将Csányi召唤到他的办公室。然后,Csányi说服总理修改拟议的税收,以使OTP不那么繁重,而不是其外国竞争对手。

    这是Csányi和OTP银行或国家储蓄和商业银行匈牙利挥舞着的力量。在面对激烈的外国竞争方面,该银行比在东欧的大多数人民在捍卫国内特许经营方面取得更加成功 - 而不支持战略西方伴侣的支持。Csányi的相当大的政治影响力没有伤害,但它真的是他有助于银行茁壮成长的商业实力。通过吸引其中一些国家的最佳银行家,积极营销和投资巨额信息技术,OTP在匈牙利的所有银行贷款中保留了约21%的人,43%的零售存款和55%的未偿还抵押贷款。

    "OTP is still the colossus and surprising everyone," says Aris Bogdaneris, who recently stepped down as chief executive of Budapest Bank, a subsidiary of GE Capital, to become head of retail banking at Austria's Raiffeisen International Bank-Holding, a major OTP rival. "Everyone thought the foreign banks would come in and eat their lunch. It hasn't happened."

    50岁的Csányi现在正在寻求在中央和东欧的延伸。OTP在斯洛伐克和罗马尼亚建立了小银行,它在过去两年中获得了它在去年购买的保加利亚零售银行领导者的DSK零售专业知识。Csányi还在克罗地亚和塞尔维亚的银行招标,并寻求从土耳其到乌克兰的可能收购。这种扩展使OTP成为唯一拥有的野心和规模的本土播放器,以竞争HVB集团银行奥地利信用州HVB集团银行奥地利信用阳台和Usicredito Italialo。Csányi的终极目标是更大胆的:在五年内,双方OTP的e6亿美元(78亿美元)的市场资本化,使银行能够在西欧寻找收购。

    "I would like to be a European bank and among the biggest ones," Csányi tells Institutional Investor. "For us the first step is to be a regional bank. We have good experience in how to restructure the bank, which products can be interesting, how to sell. I think this knowledge can be used very well in Central and Eastern Europe."

    Fulfilling Csányi's vision is a daunting challenge. Foreign banks, mostly Western European, have taken advantage of privatization and market openings over the past decade to seize control of nearly 75 percent of the sector in Central and Eastern Europe. OTP faces rivals with deeper pockets in nearly every market it seeks to enter. What's more, those rivals are working actively to erode its dominance in Hungary, one of the most competitive markets in the area. Almost every foreign bank with regional ambitions -- Austrian, Dutch, German, Italian and even American, like Citigroup and GE Capital -- has a subsidiary in the country, and most are looking to expand, including Austria's Erste Bank, which last year acquired Hungary's No. 2 retail player, Postabank, for E394 million.

    Economic conditions aren't getting any easier, either. Hungary hiked interest rates to the highest levels in the region as a result of a brief currency crisis late last year. That has cooled the pace of loan growth. Bankers also face the Gyurcsány administration's new tax in 2005, which could trim profits by as much as 10 percent.

    Despite those hurdles, few bankers are prepared to sell OTP short. Csányi has succeeded in revamping the bank's technology, product offerings and marketing over the past decade, enabling OTP to grow profits tenfold since 1995 and increase its market cap almost 30 times over. With some E15.5 billion in assets, the bank is the sixth largest in the region, behind the networks of Belgium's KBC Group, Erste, Bank Austria Creditanstalt, UniCredito and Raiffeisen.

    Earnings surged by 56 percent in the first nine months of 2004, to E442 million, fueled by high interest margins in Hungary and the contribution of DSK. Csányi confidently predicts that annual earnings will rise to E1 billion in three years' time. Return on equity was a stellar 33.5 percent in the first three quarters, compared with the European average of about 16 percent.

    "OTP has done a good job positioning itself as a major player," says Kurt Geiger, head of the financial institutions group at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which holds a roughly 2 percent stake in OTP. "Their strength is really knowing the reform process and transition. That experience could be applied in countries that have made less progress."

    Foreign investors, who own 83 percent of the bank's shares, are eager to buy into OTP's expansion strategy. Bank lending grew by 18 percent in Central and Eastern Europe last year, compared with a rate of less than 5 percent in the 12-nation euro zone, and countries like Bulgaria and Romania grew by nearly 50 percent, according to Bank Austria Creditanstalt. Most Western European banks active in the region still derive the bulk of their profits in their domestic markets, but OTP offers a pure play on the region's robust growth.

    "We see OTP Bank as not just a Hungarian play but a play on Central and Eastern Europe," says Alexander Karpov, who helps manage E450 million in equities in the region for Union Investment in Frankfurt. "We are looking for exposure to countries like Bulgaria and Romania." Union owns some E40 million of OTP shares. "It's one of the top picks in the long term," says Karpov.

    “他们是在消费增长的甜点credit and mortgages," says Douglas Helfer, who helps manage $4 billion in emerging-markets equities at F&C Asset Management in London. "They've proven themselves to be very dynamic, anticipating competition and introducing new products."

    OTP成功的根源位于匈牙利在金融自由化的早期努力。直到20世纪70年代的匈牙利银行,就像大多数共产党集团一样,是一个三环马戏团,是一个国家银行,用于贷款到行业,国家储蓄银行为零售存款和外贸银行。毕业,匈牙利开启了贸易,并投资西方比任何其他苏联卫星在华沙协议中。为了促进该活动,1979年匈牙利国家银行成立了一家联合企业商业银行,中欧国际银行,一批欧洲和日本银行。今天它是该国的第五大银行资产,由意大利Banca Intesa全资拥有。1986年,国民银行分别设立了两家合资银行,现已分别拥有花旗集团和Raiffeisen的全资子公司。次年,国家银行迅拓,所有剩余的商业活动,并限制了纯粹的央行业务。

    The early liberalization created Eastern Europe's most dynamic banking market and fostered the development of a cadre of managerial talent unmatched in the region. After the collapse of Communism, foreign banks rushed in to acquire the National Bank spin-offs in privatizations. KBC picked up the Commercial and Credit Bank, or K&H, the No. 3 bank by assets today; GE Capital acquired Budapest Bank; and ABN Amro grabbed the Hungarian Credit Bank, or MHB. Others, such as Bank Austria Creditanstalt and ING Group, built local subsidiaries from scratch. The foreign banks focused on corporate lending, seeking to capitalize on fat lending margins and the influx of foreign investment into Hungary.

    与此同时,OTP曾作为一个安全但恶臭的储蓄储存,因为它于1949年成立于该国的唯一储蓄银行。1990年,刚刚在共产主义下降之后,该银行仍占所有零售银行存款的93%,并占所有家庭贷款的98%。但尽管其主导地位,但OTP是一个遗憾的伪劣管理。“我们是一家服务不良服务,长队和没有利润的银行,”商业银行副首席执行官副首席执行官LászlóWolf说。

    政府引进Csanyi主席和chief executive in 1992 to get OTP in shape for privatization. An economist and chartered accountant by training, Csányi obtained a Ph.D. at the University of Economics in Budapest in 1983. His thesis, prophetically, was titled, "The Present Aspects and the Prospects of Development of Retail Crediting and Collecting Retail Deposits." He then became a high-flying official in the Finance and Agriculture ministries before joining National Bank spin-off MHB. He later worked as deputy CEO at K&H, another spin-off, from 1989 to 1992. His government contacts and banking experience made him a natural for the job at OTP and have played a big role in the bank's growth ever since.

    这些因素使Csányi成为一个富裕和良好的人。他的个人控股包括OTP的e40万股股份,在美国的大型匈牙利电信网络,Prime布达佩斯房地产,葡萄园,弹药厂和乳制品公司占地250万股。去年,Magyar Hirlap将他作为匈牙利的第九岁最富有的人排名,净值约为e70万;许多银行家认为他的实际价值几倍高。他在摩尔集团的董事会中席位,匈牙利石油公司,如OTP,正在整个中欧和东欧,以及匈牙利银行协会的扩展,这使他成为他的谈判时为政府游说的行业人士。总理Gyurcsány展示。“他几乎就像银行的教父一样,”竞争对手银行家说。

    Csányi makes no attempt to deny his clout. "Of course anyone who has a big role in the economy has influence," he says. His first-floor office at the bank's central Budapest headquarters looks more like that of a cabinet minister than a CEO, with dark oak paneling, boxy leather chairs and oil paintings of hunting scenes on the walls, a nod to his favorite pastime.

    Csányi grew up in the small town of Jászárokszállás, in a rural area some 100 kilometers east of Budapest, the son of a field ranger of an agricultural cooperative, and developed a lifelong love of the woods and hunting. He relaxes by going to his lodge in southern Hungary, near the Croatian border, and hunting boar and deer. Colleagues say he tells them that the quiet and concentration of the hunt help him to focus his mind. Interestingly, it's a relatively common passion among chief executives in Hungary.

    "What golf is for U.S. executives, hunting is for these guys," says one executive who knows Csányi well. "It's an opportunity to relax, reflect and meet to discuss business."

    Csányi在OTP灌输商业文化时浪费了一点时间。亚慱体育app怎么下载他在前18个月内将最高次数从215到65划分了近三个季度的最高管理层。他还推出了一个无情的成本削减计划,将银行的员工减少了50%以上,从1992年的16,500人到今天才超过8,100人。他计划在明年通过集中后台功能并使OTP分支机构纯销售网点在明年中削减额外的1,000个工作岗位。2003年底,银行的成本收入比率为54.1%,低于欧洲平均值约为60%。

    〜!侧边栏458315,2,宽/!〜

    Besides cutting costs, Csányi poured his then-limited resources into developing the bank's own technology platform to offer checking accounts, then virtually unknown in Hungary. He also used the bank's biggest asset, its nationwide network of nearly 400 branches (440 today), to sign up new clients. With those assets he went after government and corporate customers across the country, offering them the ability to pay salaries electronically and allowing workers to pay their utility and tax bills by direct debit. Today virtually all employees of the national government and more than three quarters of municipal workers -- a total of some 500,000 people -- have accounts at OTP.

    The bank has maintained its emphasis on technology, introducing successively debit cards, Internet banking and transactions by mobile telephone. It dominates all of those segments today with more than 50 percent of the Hungarian market. OTP also boasts more than 1,100 automated teller machines, nearly half of all ATMs in the country. "Now we can offer a very wide selection of products and a very good service," says Csányi.

    The banker also played a key role in persuading the government to privatize OTP in a way that would keep it in Hungarian hands, over the objections of thenFinance minister Lajos Bokros, who wanted to sell it to a foreign bank. It wasn't an obvious decision at the time, given the advantages and richer price that a sale to a foreign institution could have brought, but OTP's improved performance and the desire for a national champion won the day. The government sold a one-third stake for $89 million to Hungarian and foreign investors in an IPO in 1995; it sold an additional 39 percent in two further offerings in 1997 and 1999. The remainder of the shares were given to Hungarians whose property had been expropriated under Communism.

    Far from being a disadvantage, the lack of a strategic partner allowed OTP to tailor its technology platform, products and pricing to the Hungarian market rather than importing systems and managers from abroad. Csányi "did the right thing," says Péter Kisbenedek, chief executive of Erste Bank Hungary. "He selected good people around him. They modernized the bank and managed to keep more of their clients than anyone would have expected. It's his achievement."

    Today foreign institutional investors own 83 percent of OTP, the EBRD and other international investors about 2 percent and Hungarian investors 4.4 percent. Management and employees have 3.1 percent and the bank itself the remainder. The government retains a single preference share, which gives it a say over any change of management.

    许多银行家认为Csányi拥有超过187万股或0.7%的股权,他在银行的财务报表中披露了更多的OTP。有些人推测,他通过离岸账户拥有25%。“没有人知道他间接有多少,”匈牙利央行的金融顾问和董事会成员ÉvaVárhegyi说。即使是EBRD也承认在黑暗中。“我们当然会支持所有权的透明度,”银行的地尼格尔说。Csányi坚持认为他只拥有银行披露的股票。

    Bokros, the former Finance minister who had advocated a strategic investor for OTP to improve transparency at the bank, worries that management's ownership stake poses a potential conflict of interest and gives Csányi undue political influence. He regards OTP as symptomatic of a deeper problem in Hungary. "There is a fight going on between an open, democratic society and an oligarchic one. It's a fight for survival for everybody," he says.

    早年CSANYI着手挑选一个团队of top-notch bankers. He considers talent spotting his greatest strength. "If I go anywhere, I always look at the people," he explains. "I try to set up a database -- who can be good."

    He met Wolf, a former National Bank official who moved to Dresdner Bank, in the early 1990s when the German bank was considering a bid for K&H, where Csányi then worked. He brought Wolf to OTP in 1993 and made him deputy CEO in charge of commercial banking a year later. Today Wolf hunts for foreign acquisitions for the bank. Deputy CEO Csaba Lantos, who joined OTP as head of retail banking in 2000, was CEO of Creditanstalt in the 1990s and met Csányi when the Austrian bank advised the Hungarian government on OTP's privatization. He was surprised to get a call from Csányi a few years later. "He got the idea that I could do retail," he recalls. "It wasn't obvious."

    Csányi保留并激励他的团队与股票期权的慷慨帮助。完全80%的银行前70名高管的赔偿基于OTP的表现(对于Csányi而言,该数字为90%)。股权相关工资的大约四分之三是股票期权的形式,如果银行履行约100多个基准的80%,包括股权的实际回报超过19%,是资产的回报超过1.75%,利润增长超过通货膨胀率至少3个百分点。管理人员还接收与绩效相关的奖金。

    “这是非常有效的,因为他们会失去80 percent of their income," Csányi says with a smile. So far his team has done anything but lose. The 3.1 percent stake owned by managers and employees is worth E183 million. Wolf has a stake worth E16 million, and Zoltán Spéder, the deputy chairman and head of strategy, owns E30 million. "They're tremendously loyal to him," one competing banker says admiringly of Csányi's team. "OTP is more than just a bank."

    捍卫和现代化他的基地后,Csányi扩大了OTP的产品,其目的是成为每个主要市场的前三名球员。他的国内帝国包括Merkantil集团,这是一个控制匈牙利市场的20%的汽车贷款子公司;OTP建筑协会,储蓄和房屋贷款业务;OTP抵押银行,抵押贷款支持证券发行人;Otp-Garancia保险,该国第五大保险公司;和OTP基金管理,在管理层的一些e26亿e26亿欧元,控制近一半的匈牙利共同基金市场。

    "We're the largest and broadest group in Hungary," Csányi notes. "My policy is to be first in every new product."

    OTP's market share has eroded steadily despite all the innovation, a hard fact of life for a bank that started as a monopoly. But its success in Hungary's red-hot mortgage market shows just how powerful its franchise can be.

    The bank had seen its share of new mortgage lending fall from more than 90 percent historically to 43 percent in 2001. Then the government introduced a program that provided subsidies of as much as 6 percentage points on mortgages of up to 30 million Hungarian forint (about E120,000). Lantos, the head of retail banking, saw a clear opportunity.

    “我觉得,好的,这是我的时间,”他解释道。“如果我可以比其他人更快地反应,我们有机会转过身来。”他改变了抵押贷款部门的报告线和工作人员,将抵押贷款批准所需的一半时间削减到少于两个月。他还减轻了借款人的薪资要求。虽然这听起来有风险,但兰斯斯注意到,为了尽量减少社会保障税,许多小而中型匈牙利公司为工人提供现金的大部分赔偿金。凭借93%的房屋所有权,欧洲最高,大多数借款人在家庭中有一些财产,以抵押品。

    The results flowed quickly as mortgage lending surged by 80 percent in 2002 and again in 2003.

    The bank was caught out by a sudden shift in the mortgage market this year, however. Lending cooled dramatically after the central bank drove up interest rates to a peak of 12.5 percent in November 2003 to defend the forint and the government scaled back mortgage subsidies to curtail its big deficit. Several banks responded by offering mortgages denominated in Swiss francs or euros, which carry interest rates of as low as 5 to 6 percent, compared with 14 to 15 percent for unsubsidized forint mortgages. OTP didn't roll out foreign currency mortgages until June, several months after its rivals had. By autumn, half of its new mortgages were denominated in Swiss francs or euros. New mortgage volume was down 9.9 percent in the first nine months of the year, and OTP saw its share of new lending drop to 10.2 percent from 16.1 percent a year earlier.

    Despite this year's blip, Lantos believes the mortgage market will continue to grow at a 25 percent annual clip in the medium term as rising living standards encourage Hungarians to seek better housing. The central bank has gradually eased rates to 10 percent over the past nine months, which should help, and bankers expect it to cut rates by another 2 points or so in 2005.

    Lantos is also looking for growth in credit cards, which are still relatively rare in Hungary. Thanks to its dominance of point-of-sale terminals in stores, OTP has access to a rich stream of data on consumer spending. This fall the bank began sending out preapproved credit cards to thousands of female customers based on their shopping patterns at hypermarkets. The customers can activate the cards at one of the bank's ATMs. For Lantos, the method is simple. "We try to excavate the current client base and cross-sell, cross-sell, cross-sell. If we can manage it properly, I believe we'll be able to keep the best clients," he says.

    在商业方面,OTP占匈牙利企业贷款的12%份额,该银行正在努力对中小企业贷款的热竞争市场中的类似策略。沃尔夫说,许多小企业也被时间推迟,并且甚至申请贷款甚至申请贷款。OTP的回复?它将其零售策略复制,并在今年秋季向3,000名小型企业客户发送了预先批准的信用速度。该银行还利用其内部信用评级系统及其部队的分支机构,使其能够在一两天内批准高达E200,000的贷款。

    "We have the strength," Wolf says. "We know the market. We know the people. We can decide faster than other banks."

    Wolf's other big target is the municipal market, where OTP dominates with a market share of 66 percent of deposits and 57 percent of loans. As a new EU member, Hungary stands to receive E2.5 billion in aid for infrastructure and other projects over the next three years. OTP aims to expand lending by E100 million a year by prefinancing a chunk of that EU aid.

    OTP面临的一大挑战是,外资银行基于“增大化现实”技术e raising their game in a bid to grab market share. Erste Bank has just completed integrating Postabank, which it acquired last year. That deal made Erste the second-largest bank in Hungary, with E7.6 billion in assets and more than 250 branches. It expects to grow retail lending by as much as 35 percent this year and by 20 to 25 percent a year thereafter. "As long as OTP has that big market share, that's our main target," says CEO Kisbenedek.

    Raiffeisen aims to increase its retail market share to 8 to 10 percent by doubling its branch network to 120 by 2006. "We would like to grow and increase market share," says Krisztina Horvath, deputy CEO for Raiffeisen in Hungary. "If we want to expand in SME lending and retail, we need more branches."

    OTP and other banks also face a bigger tax burden in coming years. Hungary's banks have taken advantage of the sharp rise in interest rates over the past year and the mortgage subsidy program to raise interest margins and profits, making them a tempting target for a government desperate to close a deficit of more than 5 percent of GDP. When Gyurcsány was chosen in September to replace departing prime minister Peter Medgyessy, he surprised bankers by proposing an 8 percent surcharge on bank profits.

    That's when Csányi showed his clout -- and his canniness. He publicly blasted the proposal and threatened to move jobs offshore to lower-cost countries in the region. Then he invited Gyurcsány to his office and persuaded him to amend his tax to give banks the option of paying a surcharge of 6 percent on net interest income. That change stands to save OTP nearly E10 million in taxes next year because of the diversity of the bank's business -- it generates more than 40 percent of its revenues from fees, commissions and other noninterest activities. By contrast, almost every other major bank in Hungary derives a higher proportion of its profits from lending margins and will pay the 8 percent surcharge on overall profits.

    Csányi对他的游说毫无讨厌。“对人民提供补贴,而不是银行,”他说。“总理迈出了一个非常正确的一步。他想表明他不是银行的敌人。我没有强迫他来到这里。”

    The big growth opportunities for OTP lie outside Hungary. The bank has acquired subsidiaries in three countries since adopting a regional growth strategy two years ago. In 2002 it paid E12 million for IRB, a midsize Slovakian bank that had to be bailed out by the government in the late 1990s, and renamed it OTP Banka Slovensko. By applying OTP's aggressive retail marketing techniques, the bank managed to increase its customers by 41 percent, to 147,000, in 2003; nearly double deposits, to E429 million; and expand lending by 35 percent, to E427 million. The subsidiary eked out a modest profit of E2.3 million in the first nine months of this year, compared with a break-even result a year earlier, as loan volume surged by 36 percent.

    Csányi and Wolf's next target was DSK, the leading retail bank in Bulgaria. Some analysts believed OTP overpaid when it outbid Erste last year and won a government auction for DSK at E311 million. But the bank's big presence in the rapidly growing Bulgarian market -- it boasts 3.7 million customers in a country of 7.8 million people and controls one quarter of retail deposits and 41 percent of retail lending -- has proved a winner. Lending surged by 67 percent in the first nine months of this year, and profits jumped 44 percent, to E26.6 million.

    “如果你看看银行和国家的改善,我认为你不能说我们过度付出,”沃尔夫说。

    4月,OTP为罗马尼亚Banca Comerciala Robank支付了4750万美元,这是一个占市场份额1%的小球员。这是Csányi真正的野心的哭声。他试图购买该国的主导银行,三年前,罗马纳,但在罗马尼亚匈牙利人民的权利上,布加勒斯特离开了市场。尽管如此,OTP在市场上有一个小的立足点,就像保加利亚一样,每年的速度增长超过40%。

    OTP aims to generate growth in its new markets by exporting its technology platform and marketing expertise. The bank also hopes to take advantage of growing commercial links in the region. It is offering same-day payment across borders to small and medium-size enterprises. "If we add up all these factors, there's an important synergistic effect," says Wolf.

    Wolf hopes to continue growing the bank's regional network. OTP currently is bidding against Société Générale and Russia's Alfa Bank for Jubanka, the fifth-largest bank in Serbia. The government is expected to announce the winner of the auction for its 88 percent stake as early as December.

    OTP还在为克罗地亚的第七大银行,Nova Banka竞标时,OTP还针对Socgen和两个当地竞争对手。

    进一步的Afield,Csányi正在考虑在乌克兰和土耳其扩张,其中初期的经济和政治转型占据了奥尔普等银行(如OTP)的强劲增长的潜力,这就是从过渡过程中获利。PKO Bank Polski,新私有化的波兰零售银行是唯一一个具有区域野心的土着球员,在乌克兰的Kredyt银行购买了67%的股份,在8月份e24.5百万。

    Csányi's ambitions aren't limited to Eastern Europe, though. He boldly believes OTP can turn its sights on the West within five years. He has an eye on Germany in particular, a market not short on underperforming banks.

    "If we show we're able to run a very efficient bank and maintain a high ROE and price-to-book value, we would have enough credibility with investors" to make acquisitions in Western Europe, Csányi insists.

    Some investors worry that the banker's appetite could be his undoing. "We would be a little nervous if they bought anything significant now," says F&C's Helfer. "It's a question of how thin they can spread themselves."

    Raiffeisen's Bogdaneris contends that OTP will have to set up a separate management team to run its non-Hungarian operations, just as Raiffeisen and other Western banks have done with their Eastern European networks, if it wants to continue expanding successfully. He also questions whether OTP can grow from a small base in other countries, considering that its heritage is protecting a dominant franchise at home. "OTP really hasn't had to build," he notes.

    Csányi confidently dismisses the naysayers, though, with a nod to his track record. "We are fighting against these competitors for 12 years. A lot of people predicted that OTP would collapse because we wouldn't be able to meet the competition from big Western banks."

    Having proved his skeptics wrong once, Csányi is eager to do it again.