An increase in the number of foreign bank subsidiaries relative to branches in central and eastern Europe (CEE) poses threats to those banks' home and host countries, according to a working paper published by the Central Bank of Hungary today.

In Transforming subsidiaries into branches – Should we be worrying about it? Péter Fáykiss, Gabriella Grosz and Gábor Szigel find that at present, branches only possess a "small" market share and as such pose only a "rather moderate" threat to Hungarian