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30/11/2009 / SPECIAL REPORTS / HUNGARY / E-BUSINESS & CASH MANAGEMENT
Calyon in Hungary, the complete range of corporate and investment banking services
Calyon is one of the first international banks present in Hungary. Active since 1874 in the country, the Bank has extended its activities through the decades.
Calyon in Hungary offers its clients extensive knowledge of the local business environment, leveraging on the Bank's international network. Since October 2007, Calyon in Hungary has operated as a branch of Calyon.
Tamas Molontay, Senior Country Officer for Hungary, presents his views on Calyon's strengths in Hungary and the perspectives for 2010.
Robert Burgmann, Head of Cash Management for the CEE region and Head of IT for Hungary, explains the advantages of Calyon's cash management solutions and the coming projects in the area.
"In Hungary, we offer a very wide range of services to our clients"
Interview with Tamas Molontay, Senior Country Officer of Calyon in Hungary
What are the specificities of the Hungarian market?Hungary is an export-oriented country: the health of the Hungarian economy is notably correlated to the health of the European market economy. Another specificity is that Hungary does not belong to the Euro zone. Due to the nature of privatisations in the 1990s, around 80% of large and medium-sized companies are today held by foreign investors. Hungary is a country offering many opportunities in a large range of sectors like power, infrastructure and telecommunications for instance.
What are Calyon’s strengths on this market?
What are Calyon’s strengths on this market?
In Hungary, we offer a very wide range of services. Cash management is a significant activity. In this domain, the constant improvement of our systems is one of Calyon’s strengths; for example those made on Optim-CLIC offer many advantages to our clients as this system directly adapts to their accounting, saving them the cost and effort of producing the interface themselves.
Structured Finance is also very active: export and project finance (financing and advisory), notably in power projects, are important pillars of our business. In capital markets, we are particularly performing in interest rates derivatives, foreign exchange, emissions and gas hedging. Our oil and gas activity was intensified this year, cooperating with the Global Energy Group and London trading desks.
How does Calyon in Hungary cooperate with the Group’s entities?
Our clients include large and medium-sized companies, banks, insurance companies, asset managers, pension funds, the sovereign and its institutions. We always try to envisage our clients’ request from different angles, in order to suggest them complete and tailor-made solutions, combination of the Group’s best products. We closely work with Paris and London in most business lines, always proposing clients a dialogue with our experts on each product or service. We also cooperate with Amundi (former Crédit Agricole Asset Management), Crédit Agricole Structured Asset Management, CA Cheuvreux or Sofinco in Hungary, as well as Calyon’s entities in Hungary’s surrounding countries.
We organise seminars dedicated to our clients, with experts from Calyon and other companies, to create a real dialogue through the year.
What are the objectives for 2010?
In 2010, we will mainly focus on project finance, capital markets products and cash management. In line with our global strategy, we will strongly focus on our clients and offer them the most personalised solutions with even more cross-selling between business lines and countries.
In October 2009, Calyon’s latest core banking system (ISIS) was successfully implemented: it will allow us to develop new products next year.
The Board of Directors has approved Calyon’s change of name for the beginning of 2010. We have been working on this project for a few months, involving for instance planning of legal, systems and communication tasks. 2010 will be a very interesting year!
Interview with Robert Burgmann, Head of Cash Management for the CEE region and Head of IT for Hungary
Interview: Calyon becomes Crédit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank in Hungary
Budapest Business Boat 2009 on the Danube - 27th August, 2009
