Hi can anyone offer advice

First thing to note, nothing is free in Hungary so having a bank account will cost you about £3 or £4 a month. If you use your UK bank card in OTP Bank cash machines you get the option of having the currency changing done by OTP rather than the UK bank. This can be cheaper as you don't pay the UK bank a fee for changing it.
I do have an account with OTP but to be honest I hardly ever use it. It is simple enough to open an account and the banks in bigger towns will have someone who speaks English. You will need your passport and they will want to know your mothers maiden name. I didn't even have an address in Hungary when I opened my account but I gave a friends address for statements etc. I don't know if you can do direct debits but someone else might advise on that. You probably already know that cheques do not exist in Hungary.

Thanks Phil, just think it may be easier to pay untilities ect so do you get a bank card ? think the rates to change money was the same for both options tbh
im guessing i can transfere money in from my uk account?


Hows you today ?

When I opened my OTP account they gave me the option to also have a Sterling account so you can transfer money from UK any time and then transfer it into the Ft account when the exchange rate was good. I found I can't transfer money from my Clydesdale account to OTP by internet banking. They say I can only do it by going into my branch in northern Scotland! This is the main reason I don't use the OTP account, the UK banks are not set up for international transactions. The Hungarian accounts have IBAN and SWIFT codes but Clydesdale internet banking is only set up for UK account numbers and sort codes. Yes I have an OTP Mastercard debit card.

OPT is the omnipresent bank in Hungary, but in my family, they told me that their customer service is really not the best.

I know that Citybank has a 'gold customer' (citigold) service to offer if you have - if I remember correctly - above 5M Ft (<20k EUR) with them. EUR or Sterling accounts are possible, of course. As a citigold customer you get goodies, such as a personal banker and withdrawing money for free from any ATM in Hungary. (which is *not* free otherwise, especially using a competing bank's ATMs :-/)   https://www.citibank.hu/gcb/citigold/en … de=HUECGTT

I would check out if some other banks have similar 'private banking' offer. If you have less money, you may shop for the best offer for that. (Eg. I remember, a regular income of 150k p.m. was the limit in one bank for a nice package of some sorts)
In a shopping centre you often have a couple of banks to check out (I went to WestEnd at Nyugati) (I don't know about their english for lack of need).

EDIT: sorry, just realized you are not in Budapest;-)

Thank you for your help and input money can stay in uk account for now lol

I recommend CIB bank. They have internet bank so that you can check your account and do transaction on the internet. They have English version also.

are they internet based or are they branch based in budapest we are in Marcali so they may be too far way i dont fancy a day trip for the bank lol

But thank you

Lesley&Yan wrote:

are they internet based or are they branch based in budapest we are in Marcali so they may be too far way i dont fancy a day trip for the bank lol

But thank you

CIB has branches all around Hungary, I believe. Internet banking means after you open an account at the bank (any branch), you can manage your account and do your transactions on the internet.

CIB is a rather well known Hungarian bank (owned by foreign companies, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIB_Bank ), I am not even sure Hungary already has purely internet based banks to date.
But of course, internet banking is commonplace nowadays - but English User Interface may not be, and the quality of the UI may vary. 
Just look up, which bank is nearby Marcali, e.g here a linkt ot google maps - I used the "look for nearby places" and searched for "ATM":
http://goo.gl/maps/Amjfs
Also asking people around Marcali what bank is nearby may be useful.
If (as I understand) it is not a large amount of cash going through the bank anyway, the conditions are not important, but the opening hours and the personal quality of the clerks in your local branch may be, oh and the available of English in the Internet Banking UI, of course.

Ecbs.org claims there are 14 banks in Hungary (oddly they do not list Reiffeisen):

http://www.ecbs.org/banks/hungary/

All have an English option for Internet banking. And you can look up branch locations at their web sties. K&H Bank, as just one example, has a branch in Marcali at Rákóczi út 21. They also have the option "expat services" prominently displayed at their web site.