Several changes affected the regulatory environment and market infrastructure in Hungary during 2014, most notably the switch to the T+2 harmonised settlement cycle, implementation of the AIFM directive regulations and the changes related to the new Civil Code. The AIFM directive discussions were concentrated around two major topics: the new oversight duty of the depositories and the valuation function.

The Hungarian parliament also passed the modifications of the tax rules for 2015 and pursuant to this the planned Financial Transaction Tax for securities and securities based derivative transactions will not enter into force in 2015.

The most important change relating to securities and capital markets was the regulation, based on which public companies have to apply for stock exchange listing until March 15 2016 (if they want to operate publicly), says Babett Pavlics, head of GSS & FI Hungary at Raiffeisen Bank International.

“As of March 15 2014, companies can be established in private limited form only and become public after being listed on a stock exchange. Several definitions, such as trust/trustee or the security itself have also been updated.”