'An inconceivable mistake' – former National Bank governor reacts to State Audit Office report

He has never uttered and could never have uttered the statement attributed to him in the report of the Hungarian State Audit Office (ÁSZ), namely, that "without external assistance there is currently no possibility for a satisfactory resolution of the situation of the PADME/Optima Group", the former governor of the Hungarian National Bank, György Matolcsy said in an interview with Index. In his opinion, the fact that such a statement was attributed to him "fundamentally undermines the credibility of the President of the ÁSZ".

György Matolcsy served as governor of the Hungarian National Bank (MNB) between 2013 and 2025, and made the decision to transfer hundreds of billions of forints of the MNB's assets to foundations in the first years of his chairmanship. In 2018, the ÁSZ found the MNB foundations to be in order, but in recent years it launched a new investigation and recently published a report revealing serious irregularities.

This is the first time Matolcsy has commented on the contents of the report since its publication, having spoken with Index by phone. In response to the paper's questions, the former governor of the central bank said that he had studied all three ÁSZ reports in detail, and in his opinion they contain conclusions that are not at all in line with the facts.

"It is an inconceivable mistake for the ÁSZ President to be using the term 'causing damage' the way he does." – Matolcsy said, and added that “The data clearly show that the assets of the foundation are fully intact, in fact their value exceeds HUF 500 billion.”

Part of the reason for the ÁSZ having established that the MNB foundations have lost some of their assets is that a significant part of the funds were invested into the Polish real estate company, GTC, the value of which has gradually declined in recent years. György Matolcsy said it was an "incomprehensible lack of professionalism" for the ÁSZ to only base the value of GTC on its stock market value.

"The portfolio is diversified across ten countries, and includes a mix of office buildings, commercial real estate, hospitality facilities and residential projects. While stock market prices are indeed an important indicator of market value, they are not the only one," said Matolcsy, noting that GTC's value could also be measured by another methodology, the value of the assets it owns.

"It is for this reason that I find it unacceptable that during its almost two-year investigation, the ÁSZ should have made such gross professional errors, which are not only unethical and methodologically unfounded, but also seriously violate the principles of fact-based dialogue, thus undermining the credibility of all the claims made in the report and ultimately the competence of the head of the ÁSZ," Matolcsy said.

In its report, the ÁSZ pointed out that under Hungarian law, companies listed on the stock market can only be valued based on their stock market value, which is established by a law that they did not adopt. Therefore, even if they wanted to, they could not use the alternative methods of valuation proposed by Matolcsy.

Based on the facts disclosed in its report, the ÁSZ identified a series of suspected criminal offences and filed a complaint with the Public Prosecutor's Office. It later emerged that the National Police Headquarters had opened an investigation on suspicion of malfeasance.