Banking union MUBE: 'Serious reservations' about Hungarian HSBC bid

A banking sector union has said it has “serious reservations” about Hungary’s top bank OTP taking over HSBC Malta and said the government should “intervene” if necessary.

The Malta Union of Bank Employees (MUBE) said in a statement on Saturday that it would insist on getting involved in the sale “once the preferred bidders are known” and made it clear it was sceptical about the bank being sold to OTP.

“MUBE calls upon the State to intervene if necessary to protect the interests and reputation of the country and to ensure that transparency and fairness, in the widest sense of words, are tangibly practiced,” it said in a statement.

OTP - Hungary's largest bank with 17 million customers across 11 countries - was revealed to be among the interested parties in a Times of Malta exclusive earlier this week, prompting murmurs of concern within political circles due to the bank’s operations in Russia.

Finance Minister Clyde Caruana warned that the country had to guard against reputational damage following its FATF greylisting while also cautioning that another bidder for HSBC – local bank APS – would hurt competition in an already restricted sector.

In a letter to the editor published by Times of Malta on Saturday, OTP said that it maintains professional relationships with governments in all the countries it operates but keeps a “clear and firm distance from politics and personal entanglements” and that it does not “maintain any relationship with political actors that deviates from accepted western standards.”

HSBC Malta has told its shareholders that it has received a “number” of acquisition offers from interested parties. It has now secured shareholder approval to open its books to bidders, as negotiations continue.

MUBE said the minister had "rightly" expressed concern about the sale, which it acknowledged would be "no easy feat".

Corporate-level decisions concerning the HSBC Malta sale had to respect shareholders and banking employees, the union said. 

“For the interested bidders and the HSBC Group, it might be just another business transaction but for MUBE and the employees it represents it is much more,” it said.