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Hungary’s national competent authority has imposed a fine of HUF10m (€25,020) on K&H Bank for deficiencies in its internal regulatory framework and IT systems related to payment transactions.
The penalty follows an investigation into K&H Bank, a subsidiary of Belgium’s KBC Bank, and its compliance with IT rules.
The central bank, Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB), said that although the identified issues did not pose an immediate risk to the bank’s secure operation, it expects K&H Bank to swiftly rectify the shortcomings.
The investigation, which covered transactions from January 1, 2024 onward, found that certain controls were inadequate and IT support was not at the expected level.
In its decision, the MNB stressed that K&H Bank must ensure continuous compliance with legal requirements and set up adequate internal processes and IT safeguards.
This latest enforcement action comes just weeks after the central bank fined K&H Bank HUF19m (€47,538) for failing to comply with EU open banking rules under the revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2).
As covered by Vixio, the regulator found that the bank had imposed unnecessary hurdles for account information service providers (AISPs) by requiring users to manually enter transaction reference numbers, making the process cumbersome and non-compliant.
The MNB noted that K&H Bank had already been granted 14 months to resolve the issue before the fine was imposed.
