“Beginning on Monday, Hungary’s most popular form of investment, the Hungarian Government Security Plus (MÁP Plus) bond will also be available in printed form at post offices in six denominations from ten thousand forints to two million forints, providing the highest rate of interest on the market. Hungarian families have already subscribed to the electronic MÁP Plus bond to a value of over 2500 billion forints (EUR 7.6 billion)”, Minister of Finance Mihály Varga wrote on his Facebook page.

In a statement to Hungarian news agency MTI on Tuesday, Government Debt Management Agency Pte. Ltd. (ÁKK) announced that it will also be making a printed bond version of the MÁP Plus available from next Monday within the network of the Hungarian Post Office Pte. Ltd., at an unchanged level of interest.

The goal of the government with the introduction of a printed version of the bond is to further increase the role of consumer government securities on the savings products market. The Post Office will be the exclusive distributor of the bonds as a sub-representative of the Hungarian State Treasury at over 2100 postal service locations. This will enable an even broader availability of investment products for the public. The rate of interest of the printed MÁP Plus bond is the same as that of the version already available for direct purchase onto a bond account.

The interest and purchase conditions relating to the MÁP Plus, the Treasury Savings Bonds (KTJ I and KTJ II) available exclusively via the postal network, and the Baby Bond and Premium Euro Hungarian Government Security available from the Treasury, will remain unchanged.

The recent reduction in market returns and the favourable demand for government securities is enabling a reduction in the rate of interest of certain consumer government securities while still enabling them to generate an outstanding return for consumer investors that remains significantly higher than the rates of return available on the market. The Agency indicated that the rate of interest paid by certain government securities sold to the public will be changing from Monday, namely the rate of interest paid by the 1-Year Hungarian Government Security (1MÁP) will be reduced to 2.5 percent, the interest premium paid by the 3-year Hungarian Government Security (PMÁP) will be reduced to 1.0 percent, and that of the 5-year bond will fall to 1.4 percent. The remaining conditions will remain unchanged, and the 1MÁP and PMÁP bonds will continue to be available from the State Treasury and within the branch networks of certain banks and investment firms.

According to the statement, a decision has also been made to reduce the commissions paid with relation to consumer government securities from 1 January 2020, as a result of which the commissions paid by the budget will be falling significantly from 2020.

(Ministry of Finance)