Hungary

Start Tokegarancia, a guarantor set of by the Hungarian Business Development Foundation and state-owned investment company Corvinus a year ago, has started offering small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) guarantees helping them to apply at EU tenders, Start Tokegarancia managing director Gabor Szakall told.

The uncertainty caused by last year's austerity measures was felt until October, 2006, since that low point, the business confidence increased, but the optimism is still relative.

In 2006, factoring turnover is expected to increase again by a similar level to 2005, due to the favourable economic and legislative environment.

Euler Hermes' credit insurance and factoring units in Hungary had combined revenue of HUF 2.8bn in 2006, 21.7 per cent more than in 2005, Euler Hermes announced. The credit insurance

Hungarian Development Bank (MFB) and Commerzbank have no choice but to enter a Ft100 m loss in their books, an amount appropriated by the latest CEO of a

Hitelgarancia, a state-owned credit guarantor, signed more than 24,000 contracts guaranteeing borrowing worth a combined HUF 228.5bn in 2006, up from

Sentiment among SMEs improved slightly in the fourth quarter of 2006, but was still low as businesses expect positive macroeconomic trends

The number of insolvent companies in Hungary tripled year-on-year in 2006

While lending to SMEs grew much faster than corporate lending as a whole, financing of SMEs is still unsatisfactory, because Hungarian small and micro enterprises can find fewer sources

One of the fastest growing areas in the debt management sector is the factoring business.