Hungary’s 10 million citizens could lose far more than what a few hundred thousand borrowers may gain thanks to the bank settlements law, Hungary’s Banking Association has warned. “Clients are now under the impression that they can win a lot more from the current bailout,” Levente Kovács, the association’s secretary general, said, arguing that the biggest reduction on loan repayments borrowers could hope for is around 25-30%, or around the same as they could have saved under a previous bailout based on an exchange-rate-capped repayment scheme. On the issue of whether contracts had been fair, he argued the banking sector was one of Hungary’s most strictly regulated areas and the authorities had continually monitored it. Government spokeswoman Éva Kurucz reaffirmed that the government is committed to holding to account banks that pursued unfair lending practices and brought hundreds of thousands of families to the brink of bankruptcy.