As part of its current growth strategy Fortis has opened three new three new commercial and private banking centres in Prague, Budapest and ...

As part of its current growth strategy Fortis has opened three new three new commercial and private banking centres in Prague, Budapest and Vienna. The new centres — so-called business centres — are part of the bank’s plans to open 35 similar centres throughout Europe in the next four years. Earlier this year new Fortis banking centres were opened in Hamburg, Zurich and Florence. Fortis said in a statement on its current strategy initiative: “Private banking will base its expansion on this network. Customer teams will be reinforced and expanded… Cost efficiency is being pursued further with joint offices for commercial and private banking, streamlining of sales processes, further expansion of a single IT platform in all business centers and centralization of back-offices, such as those for leasing and factoring.” The Brussels-based bank added that it was currently planning to take on new staff in private banking, but also said jobs would need to be eliminated due to “duplicate tasks in support functions.” The current strategy is very much the vision of the newly appointed chief executive of Fortis, Jean Paul Votron. Mr Votron took over late last year and was charged with revitalizing Fortis's Dutch retail-banking operations. He was hired from Citigroup, where he was chief executive for Western Europe, Central Europe and Russia. Fortis made no mention of the acquisition of Dryden Wealth Management, which is almost certain to be announced within the next week, according to sources close to the wealth manager.