Steven N.
Only 12% of Hungarians would survive without income for a year, while 67% of the population has been able to set aside money more or less regularly over the past year, reports state news agency MTI, quoting research by Provident Pénzügyi Zrt.
In an international survey commissioned by International Personal Finance (IPF), Ipsos MORI found that 45% of Hungarian respondents felt that their personal financial situation had not changed, with 24% saying it had improved and 27% saying it had gotten worse.
Last year, only 19% of those surveyed said that their financial situation had improved, compared to 24% this year. Over the past year, 27% of Hungarians surveyed reported not being able to put money away at the end of the month.
Of the Eastern European countries surveyed, Romania had the worst rate, with 34% saying they were unable to save anything. The Czechs were the best, with only 18% of those unable to set aside extra funds at the end of the month. One in ten Hungarians in the survey stated that they had been able to save a large or considerable amount on a monthly basis.
The survey showed that every tenth Hungarian regularly sets aside a fixed amount at the end of a month. One in four respondents said they were able to save a variable amount of money on a monthly basis, while one in three respondents had been able to save some amount of money, but not on a regular basis over the past 12 months.
In the past year, 32% of Hungarians borrowed or took out a personal loan in some way, including 15% of those who received a loan from a bank or financial institution, and the rest borrowed from family and friends.
[Magyar Hang][Photo: Péter Revisnyei, “27,” / Flickr, (CC BY-SA 2.0)]
