OTP says paid back half 1.4 bln eur state loan

BUDAPEST, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Hungary's OTP Bank OTPB.BU has paid back 700 million euros ($1.04 billion), or half the 1.4 billion state loan it received in March to boost lending to the corporate sector, the bank said in a statement on Thursday.

"OTP Bank is committed to ease the pain of the crisis caused by the scarce of liquidity through lending to the local corporate sector," it said.

"However, due to the conditions of the loan facility, namely the interest rate level and maturity, the Bank could satisfy the demand of only a limited circle of entrepreneurs."

OTP said in the future it was willing to lend using its own liquidity buffers, currently exceeding 5 billion euros.

OTP shares finished trade up 1 percent at 5,435 Hungarian forints on the Budapest Stock Exchange, broadly in line with a 0.9 percent gain in the wider market .BUX. ($1=.6734 Euro) (Reporting by Gergely Szakacs; editing by Simon Jessop)