Pictet & Cie has opened an office in Munich as it looks to increase business with German clients.

Pictet & Cie has opened an office in Munich as it looks to increase business with German clients.

“The opening of the Munich office is a logical step for us after our client relationships in Munich and southern Germany developed so positively in recent years,” said Marc Pictet, a partner at the bank.

Pictet joins Swiss banks Julius Baer and Vontobel Holding AG in opening new offices in Germany to provide local wealth management services amidst a crackdown by German authorities on individuals depositing undeclared funds offshore. Authorities have investigated UBS AG, Credit Suisse Group AG and Julius Baer - Switzerland’s three largest wealth managers - for helping Germans evade taxes.

“We will not open six or seven offices as some of our competitors have done,” said Oliver Moeller, a Frankfurt-based spokesman for Pictet. “Clients of the bank in Munich will book assets domestically in Frankfurt or use Geneva for cross-border accounts.”

The opening of a Munich office makes sense. Germany is the world’s fourth-largest wealth market and has 362,000 millionaire households, according to a report by Boston Consulting. Ultra-wealthy households with more than $100 million in private financial wealth numbered 680, compared with 3,016 in the US and 339 in Switzerland, the Boston-based firm said.

However French bank Credit Suisse has decided to scale back its operations in the country. In December it said it was selling its German private-banking business with about €10 billion ($13.8 billion) under management to ABN Amro Group NV’s Bethmann Bank. Credit Suisse plans to focus on servicing super-rich Germans and will book the business in Switzerland and Luxembourg, the company said at the time.

Pictet manages SFr301.7 billion. The bank’s Frankfurt office will continue to serve as its main hub in Germany.