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Daisy Wu

The way European banks fund themselves is quietly shifting.
Geopolitical fragmentation, rising financing costs and increasingly unstable global energy supplies are pushing lenders to look beyond their traditional capital markets. And Hong Kong, which central and eastern European institutions rarely access directly, is emerging as a powerful alternative.
OTP Bank, Hungary’s biggest lender, is one such bank that has given a vote of confidence to the city.
The Budapest-based bank has become the first European financial institution to directly list a debt financing programme on the Hong Kong stock exchange – a move that signals not just a strategic bet by a single lender, but a broader bridge between Asian capital markets and European issuers.
“When there are certain problems in the European capital market, you can still rely on the Far East market,” Sandor Pataki, director of investor relations and capital markets operations at OTP Bank, said in an interview with the South China Morning Post before the June 30 listing ceremony.
“The Hong Kong stock exchange listing is probably one of the best, if not the best instrument,” he added.

This coincided with a time when funding conditions in Europe were coming under renewed pressure and war in the Middle East had disrupted global energy supplies, driving up oil and gas prices and pushing volatility across asset classes – a strain that had hit energy-import-dependent countries especially hard, the European Central Bank warned in May.
Euro area sovereign bond markets have faced rising yields and lingering inflation concerns, with financing costs climbing across major advanced economies.
At the same time, a structural regulatory burden is showing little sign of easing. Banks across the European Union must maintain a minimum ratio of eligible liabilities, or MREL, to ensure they can absorb losses in a resolution scenario – a requirement that can typically only be met through capital market issuance.
For banks across central and Eastern Europe, that regulatory reality made funding diversification not just strategic, but necessary, Pataki said.
Asian markets, he added, had remained largely intact and functional even as conflicts flared elsewhere.
Pataki said Hong Kong stood out within that landscape for its deep capital pool and established reputation as a financial hub, making the region a comparatively stable place to raise funds.


“We think it can be a super good contact between mainland China and also the regional institutions, participating in future deals,” he said.
Hong Kong, for its part, had been actively building its credentials as a bond issuance hub for international borrowers, with new issuance of Hong Kong dollar debt securities surging 58.6 per cent year on year to HK$1.6 trillion (US$204 billion) in 2025, according to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.
The city’s authorities had stated that attracting overseas issuers was a priority, as they promoted Hong Kong’s common law system, its deep pool of institutional investors and a regulatory framework long familiar to international issuers.
Until now, debt programmes listed directly on the Hong Kong stock exchange have been dominated by mainland Chinese and other Asian issuers.
However, OTP’s listing marks the first time a European financial institution has stepped into that space – sending the flow of Asian capital westward rather than the reverse.
“To our best understanding, no one from the region, no one from the European Union has yet done that,” Pataki said. “We are going to have a new type of entrance to the market.”




As the largest independent bond issuer in central and Eastern Europe, OTP has effectively opened a door.
This Hong Kong listing forms part of OTP’s €7 billion (US$7.95 billion) Euro Medium Term Note programme, which was first listed in Luxembourg in May 2020, before adding the Hong Kong market.
About €5 billion had been issued to date, leaving headroom for further tranches over the programme’s 12-month validity period, Pataki noted.
The listing, he said, was designed to give OTP direct access to Asian professional investors, rather than going through intermediary markets.
This is not the bank’s first attempt at attracting Asian capital. Last year, OTP issued 900 million yuan (US$132 million) in offshore green bonds through Luxembourg, which was oversubscribed 1.5 times by investors in Hong Kong and Singapore, following a 300 million yuan bond in 2024.
Pataki said OTP planned to continue diversifying its funding and building visibility among Asian investors, with future issuance potentially spanning Hong Kong dollars, Singapore dollars and Japanese yen.
Longer term, he said, the bank aspired to issue panda bonds – yuan-denominated debt sold directly into mainland China’s onshore interbank bond market.
“It is not going to be a single journey – we listed and then forget,” Pataki said. “Next year we are going to be here, and the following year.
“As the Chinese proverb reminds us, every journey begins with a single step.”


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European banks, facing rising costs and energy instability, are turning to Hong Kong for funding, with Hungary’s OTP Bank leading the shift


European banks, facing rising costs and energy instability, are turning to Hong Kong for funding, with Hungary’s OTP Bank leading the shift.


OTP gives Hong Kong a vote of confidence as European banks look East

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}European banks, facing rising costs and energy instability, are turning to Hong Kong for funding, with Hungary’s OTP Bank leading the shift

European banks, facing rising costs and energy instability, are turning to Hong Kong for funding, with Hungary’s OTP Bank leading the shift