Hungary

Hungary merged its separate financial supervisor into the central bank in 2013, so the Magyar Nemzeti Bank now both sets monetary policy and licenses and supervises investment firms. The consolidation followed a period in which several domestic brokerages collapsed amid fraud, and the MNB's supervisory posture has been notably firmer since.

The brokerage failures and what changed

In 2015 a series of Hungarian brokerage houses failed after discovering large-scale misappropriation of client assets. The episode drove reforms to client-asset controls and reporting, and it is the reason Hungarian traders pay closer attention than most to where securities are actually held rather than to what a statement says. The lesson generalises: segregation is a control that has to be verified and audited, not a promise printed in an account agreement.

Trading conditions

The ESMA caps apply: 30:1 on major currency pairs, 20:1 on minors, gold and major indices, 10:1 on other commodities, 5:1 on shares, 2:1 on cryptocurrencies, with negative balance protection, 50% margin close-out, no bonuses and mandatory loss-rate disclosure. Binary options are banned for retail clients.

The TBSZ account

Hungary's tartós befektetési számla is a long-term investment account that reduces and eventually eliminates the tax on gains if the assets stay in it for a defined number of years, with a lower rate at the intermediate point and full relief at the end. It is genuinely valuable, and it is designed for holding rather than trading: withdrawing early forfeits the relief, and not every instrument or provider qualifies. A Hungarian resident should establish whether their intended trading can sit inside a TBSZ before assuming the relief applies — for leveraged CFDs with a foreign broker, it generally cannot.

Compensation

Clients of Hungarian-licensed firms are covered by the domestic investor protection fund up to a statutory limit. A broker passporting in from another EEA state brings its home scheme, commonly the €20,000 Cypriot fund.

Tax

Gains outside a TBSZ are taxed as capital income, with a domestic intermediary reporting and a foreign broker leaving the declaration entirely to you, including forint conversion of every transaction.

Checks

The MNB publishes registers of supervised institutions and warnings about unauthorised providers.