With a 4.99% interest rate for euros, OTP hopes to sell a mortgage loan per week

Hungary's OTP Bank hopes to sell five to ten mortgage loans at most per month through each branch, after coming up with a promotional interest of 4.99% per annum, fixed in the first year. The interest is similar with the ones offered in the summer of 2008, when lending was booming, but sales expectations are much more modest now. "In 2008, we were selling a loan per day in each branch," says Gabriel Cretu, network and sales manager of OTP Bank, a medium-sized bank controlled by Hungary's biggest financial group. Cretu says there is already a "volume" of clients who can afford to make acquisitions and who have so far awaited the emergence of some bargains on the market, and prices have currently reached a "tradable" level. After the one-year promotional period, the interest rate becomes variable, being calculated after the three-month Euribor formula, plus a margin of 4.33%.