Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest

In 1830, a group of prominent merchants in Pest, including Jewish traders such as Sámuel Wodianer and Izrael Baumgarten, gathered under the leadership of Móric Ullmann [hu] and applied for the establishment of a commercial bank.

[2] On 17 June 1848, under the leadership of József Havas [hu], the bank entered into a contract with the Hungarian state (with Minister of Finance Lajos Kossuth), according to which the Hungarian government deposited five million forints with the bank in real gold and silver, in exchange for which the financial institution was granted the role to issue notes which became known as "Kossuth's banknotes".

On 12 September 1848, the parliament also decided to put five-forint tickets into circulation, despite opposition from the Vienna government on the grounds that they do not comply with the Austro-Hungarian financial contracts.

The idea of the merger came from Leó Lánczy, the director of the Földhitel, who subsequently became the general manager of the Hungarian Commercial Bank and then its chairman until his death in 1921.

Under Lánczy's decades-long leadership, the bank prospered again and financed many large companies (e.g. Tungsram, Marx és Mérei, Engel Károly Alkatrészgyár, Budapest Telephone Network, Schlick factory, MARTA car factory) and railway ventures and utilities (e.g. Magyar Helyiérdekű Vasút Rt., Budapest City Electric Railway Rt., Budapesti Közúti Vaspálya Rt.).

At the beginning of the 1900s, they bought the Diana baths building on the corner of today's József Attila utca and Széchenyi tér, which was demolished and the new headquarters of the bank was built in an eclectic style based on the plans of Zsigmond Quittner.

The Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest managed to maintain a significant albeit diminished position in the immediate interwar period.

[citation needed] The PMKB was nationalized by the post-war communist regime and transformed into the exclusive manager of the country's foreign trade transactions.