Our newest member is the Central Bank of Hungary

We welcome our newest member company, the Central Bank of Hungary, which was founded in 1924. The main activity of the company is the conducting of monetary policy, tasks related to money circulation and the supervision of financial organizations in Hungary, and is represented by the Minister of Finance. The bank has more than 1400 employees, and its number one leader is Dr. György Matolcsy.

The Central Bank – as an institution supporting financial stability and long term economic growth – has set a new strategic goal to facilitate Hungarian sustainable investments and their financing (be it bank- or capital market based), and to align all of these with policies and the opportunities of real economic actors. Their goal is to promote the development of banking and capital market products, that support the spread of climate-friendly energy, industrial, agricultural, water management and waste management technologies. For this purpose the Department of Sustainable Finance was established in 2019 to perform these tasks. In 2019, the Bank obtained the Green Office certification, while the environmental impact of its conferences is compensated by WWF Hungary‘s habitat restoration ecological investments. It is planning to achieve its operations’ total carbon neutrality with a similar solution.

The Central Bank’s Environmental Declaration has been publicly available since 2011, and its transparent operation is ensured by the audits of the Court of Auditors, annual reports and press conferences. Its Statute and Ethics Committee ensures ethical operation.

The second pillar of their Green Program include the cooperation with domestic and international organizations, thus they would like to support the implementation of domestic climate and sustainability efforts through their BCSDH membership. They believe BCSDH is an excellent platform to communicate and consult with domestic companies.