BNP Paribas is to house its London wealth management business in a new 350,000 sq ft office in King's Cross in the northwest of the city as part of moves to centralise its activities in the capital in two locations.

Once the new office is ready in 2015 the French bank’s London entire investment solutions arm will be based in King's Cross – this includes its wealth management, real estate, investment partners and securities services businesses. However, Cardif Pinnacle, which is also part of the investment solutions business line, will remain in its current base at Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.

The firm’s corporate and investment banking businesses, meanwhile, will be based near Marylebone. BNP Paribas employs 8,000 people in the UK, mostly in London.

In other recent developments, earlier this month BNP Paribas Wealth Management appointed Akshay Jaitly as head of non-resident Indians for North Asia. Jaitly, who was latterly global head of private banking at Axis Bank, now reports to Stephane Honig, head of Indian markets for BNP Paribas Wealth Management.

BNP Paribas Wealth Management is the world’s seventh largest private bank, with €244 billion ($319 billion) worth of assets under management (as at end-December 2011).