Another report notes that France's largest lender is gearing up operations in Germany.

Parisian banking group BNP Paribas is planning a major recruitment spree in the German wealth management sector, according to its co-head of wealth management.

The Paris-based lender wants to add as many as 150 staff to its private-banking operations across German cities over the next three years. That will be about four times more people in the firm’s existing units than are currently employed. The report follows comments from more than a week ago that the French group plans acquisitions in Germany. 

Vincent Lecomte, co-head of the bank’s wealth-management business, spoke to Bloomberg about the firm’s growth in Germany. “We want to become a top private banking player in Germany. We are focused on Mittelstand entrepreneurs,” Lecomte said. He added that this will be done by hiring relationship managers and increasing its credit and products services teams. The recruiting drive will help the bank reach out to clients with a net worth above €5 million ($5.8 million), including “mega wealthy clients” with more than €100 million, Lecomte said.

The wealth management push is part of a bigger drive by BNP Paribas to boost its annual revenue in Germany by about eight per cent a year to reach around $2.3 billion, by the end of 2020.

WealthBriefing understands from previous conversations with senior figures from the bank that its desire to ramp up business in Germany has been on the cards for some time. With Deutsche Bank battling to restore its fortunes, and Commerzbank recovering from its bailout phase a decade ago, the market is deemed ripe for development. Foreign players in the market include HSBC (HSBC Trinkaus) and ABN AMRO (Bethmann Bank AG), and there is a large group of small private banking houses, many of them dating back centuries.

(For a profile by this news service of the German market, see here.)