Development and Efficiency of the Banking Sector in a Transitional Economy: Hungarian Experience

The paper analyzes the experiences and developments of Hungarian banking sector during the transitional process from a centralized economy to a market-oriented system. The paper identifies that early reorganization initiatives, flexible approaches to privatization, and liberal policies towards foreign banks’ involvement with the domestic institutions helped to build a relatively strong and increasingly efficient banking system. Banks with higher foreign bank ownership involvement were associated with lower inefficiency.