First and foremost, it shows the close attachment of the Bank to the Crédit Agricole Group. Another important point of consideration was that the new name better shows the unity and strength of the Bank, which creates a good basis for us to continue the work we have been doing in the field of corporate and investment banking. Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank is among the banks providing the most sizeable loans in Hungary. In our traditionally strong fields, such as the financing of the oil and gas sector, energy, telecommunication and infrastructure developments, and also commodity hedging, we are among the largest players. Retail banking however, is not among our business lines. Our new name expresses all this more clearly than the previous one. Let me mention here that Sean Connery is the face of the campaign launched to support the introduction of the new name, relating closely to the international corporate campaign of Crédit Agricole that began last autumn.

Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank is clearly a corporate bank. The global crisis has proven to us how important it is to focus on our clients, and this is exactly what we do, with a very strong background. We are among the world’s leading banks in loan syndication, project financing and bond issuance, but our organisation retained its flexibility, which means that we can quickly find, plan and implement the solutions that are the most suitable to ensure the optimal operation of our clients. This flexibility is also fostered by our close cooperation with our colleagues in London and Paris, benefitting from their knowledge and expertise – the flow of opinions and information is traditionally fast and global in our Bank. Besides all that, we also benefit from being a branch, and consequently assume the risk rating of the Crédit Agricole Group.

No, it will not. We will continue to focus on our traditional areas of expertise. These business areas include, first and foremost, the financing of large scale investments on a project basis or in the form of export financing (for example, in the energy sector), with our services extending to related consultancy. Cash management and derivative transactions are also among our focus areas. As regards the latter, we are very active in interest rate, foreign currency, oil, fuel and gas price hedging, and probably, we are one of the best in emissions trading and hedge transactions. Our cash management solutions are cutting edge, but we will invest a great amount of energy this year in developing these solutions further.

Let me refer here to our analysts in London: according to their forecast, 2010 will still be a year of recession in Hungary. In other words, although only to a small extent, but the economy will continue to shrink. In this environment we will have to pay even more attention to our clients’ needs, because now, a good solution, a good financing structure can turn into gold in the hands of an organisation that finds the right model to conduct business. To that end, we are developing a number of new products, which is always very exciting.

Our headquarters were bought and renewed by Crédit Lyonnais Bank; the Muráthy–Teleki Palace is considered as one of the Group’s most beautiful headquarters in the world. It is not by accident that the Bank chose a historic building for headquarters: Crédit Lyonnais contributed to the development of the infrastructure of the Hungarian capital already in 1874, when it participated in the 6% "Hungarian Loan.” The bank returned to Hungary immediately after the fall of the Communist system, it opened a representative office already in January 1990, and was the first bank in Hungary established not by demerging from the Hungarian National Bank but by a 95%, then 100% owned subsidiary of a foreign bank, with approval from the State Bank Supervision. We are proud of our history in Hungary but it means no competitive advantage. You cannot inherit advantage – you have to deserve it with hard work day by day.