Personal Finance: Survival but No Planning

Financial planning is still not part of everyday life for Hungarians, with older working-age people in particular losing faith in their ability to take control of their financial situation, according to an international survey covering nine countries commissioned by the mother company of Provident Financial Ltd., International Personal Finance (IPF).

While young people are becoming increasingly thrifty, the savings of middle-aged people are declining. Although Hungarians believe that it is important to increase financial awareness and there is a growing desire for financial knowledge, action is still lacking.

According to the representative survey, only 4.6% of Hungarian households are able to save more than half of their income in a month, which is the lowest rate among all the countries surveyed. The only consolation is that, after Lithuania, Hungary has seen the largest increase in the proportion of people in this group compared to 2022, when only 1.8% were able to live comfortably on half their salary.

Provident's research data for Hungary also confirms that the savings situation in Hungary is extremely alarming: according to statistics, the majority of the increase in savings continues to be concentrated in a narrow social group. In contrast, 27% of those surveyed are unable to save at all. Not only is this figure exceptionally high in the Central European region (the proportion of those unable to save is 9% in the Czech Republic, 12% in Poland and only 18% in Romania), but the Hungarian data is also the worst in the survey covering nine countries. The regularity of saving is also very disappointing in Hungary: only one-third of respondents said they were able to set aside some amount of money every month – this is also the lowest rate among the countries surveyed, with Poland (56%) and the Czech Republic (50%) far ahead in regional comparison, and even Romania (34%) ahead of Hungary.

However, there is one small encouraging development: the proportion of those who have enough savings to last at least three months in Hungary has increased. In 2025, 15.5% of Hungarian respondents said this, which represents an increase of nearly 5 percentage points in one year. This improvement is the largest in the region, and according to the research, only Australia is ahead of us – but this may not necessarily be a positive development.