Background For a short period during the
Hungarian Revolution of 1848, the revolutionary government used the recently established
Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest as a central bank. The adaptation of the pre-existing Austrian National Bank's to the monarchy's new political structure was only finalized in 1878, when its name was changed to
Austro-Hungarian Bank. The latter was given a unitary governance with a general meeting () and governing council () chaired by a Governor, but a dual operating structure with two separate executive teams () and head offices () in
Vienna and
Budapest. The governor was to be jointly nominated by the respective ministers of finance of
Austria and
Hungary, and the bank was statutorily committed to opening new branches on an equitable basis in both parts of the Habsburg Monarchy. Hungarian nationalists were not satisfied by these arrangements and kept advocating for a separate Hungarian central bank, but their efforts remained unsuccessful until the end of the joint monarchy. The new Budapest head office building of the Austro-Hungarian Bank was inaugurated in 1905. It was designed by architect
Ignác Alpár, with sculpture by
József Róna and . File:Magar Nemzeti Bank 1924.jpg|Share of the Hungarian National Bank, issued June 20, 1924 File:Magyar Nemzeti Bank 2.jpg File:Budapešť 0937.jpg File:Budapest, Szabadság tér, Nemzeti Bank épülete.JPG File:Magyar Nemzeti Bank.jpg File:Pallas Athéné Domus Meriti Conference Center.jpg|Pallas Athéné Domus Meriti Conference Center After the chaotic period immediately following
World War I, the Hungarian authorities established a Royal Hungarian State Note-Issuing Institute () on , which issued
Hungarian koronas to replace the
Austro-Hungarian krone as the newly independent country's currency. In 1927, the National Bank introduced the
Hungarian pengő to replace the korona. In 1930, the Hungarian National Bank was a founding shareholder of the
Bank for International Settlements. During
World War II and in its immediate aftermath, the MNB was unable to maintain the value of the pengő which experienced the world's worst-ever recorded bout of hyperinflation in 1945–1946. The MNB introduced a new currency, the
Hungarian forint, on . The MNB was nationalized at the end of 1947. Under that system, the MNB had no independence from the Hungarian state and also engaged in commercial banking activities. A
two-tier banking system that focused the MNB on a monetary policy role was eventually re-introduced on . Hungary was supposed to
join the eurozone in 2010, which would have resulted in the MNB losing control of monetary policy, but central bank leaders criticized this plan, saying that the fiscal austerity requirements would slow growth. In December 2011 two of the three major
credit rating agencies downgraded Hungarian long term currency debt to "junk status", due in part to changes to the
Constitution of Hungary, creating doubts about the independence of the central bank. On 20 May 2016, Fitch Ratings upgraded Hungary's corresponding debt status to BBB− (which is investment grade), assigning a stable outlook to the rating. The upgrade was mainly motivated by, among other factors, high current account surpluses, high European Union (EU) fund inflows, banks' external deleveraging, the central bank's self-financing programme and foreign currency mortgage conversion reducing Hungary's external debt and financial vulnerability.
Accusation of money laundering In March 2025, the Hungarian state audit office wrote a report finding that the bank, and its leader,
György Matolcsy took part in laundering of 500 billion forints (approximately 1.2 billion euros) worth of money. It has been described in Hungarian media as the biggest bank robbery in world history, as it has surpassed Saddam Hussein 1b$ heist of the national bank of Iraq, which is often mentioned as such. ==Operations==