Commerzbank has signed around 50,000 net new clients to its retail and private banking business in the third quarter of this year, management board member Achim Kassow has said, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Frankfurt-listed bank, which has been forced under EU law to sell off non-German private banking businesses as a condition of receiving government aid, is due to issue Q3 results on 8 November.

Kassow said Commerzbank was pleased with the figure for new clients, which will boost its status as Germany's second-largest bank for private and retail banking with around 11 million customers. Kassow is responsible for Commerzbank's private clients business as well as its Central and Eastern European operations.

Commerzbank did not elaborate on the report when contacted by this publication yesterday.

Kassow said profit margins remain severely pressured in Germany's highly-competitive private banking market, where it competes for business with Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Postbank and foreign banks such as Spain's Banco Santander. Volatile market activity, low interest rates and stricter regulation further pressure business, Kassow said.

He said costs and risk provisions for the private clients business remain stable, while risk provisions are falling. The private clients unit is still on track to reach its 2012 goal of earning around €1 billion (about $1.4 billion) in operating profits, Kassow said.

Germany provided more than €18 billion in financial support to Commerzbank during the financial crisis. As part of its restructuring, it sold off private banking businesses outside Germany, including the UK-based private bank Kleinwort Benson.