Banque de Luxembourg is expanding its client base with the acquisition of Lloyds' Luxembourg-based private banking business.

Pierre Ahlborn, managing director, said the acquisition reflects the firm's strategy of developing its core private banking business and involves primarily wealthy European clients. The move takes the bank's assets under management to €18.5 billion (about $24.1 billion).

"Our foreign customers are often looking for a specialised and reliable alternative to the offer they have in their country of origin," said Luc Rodesh, a member of the committee in charge of private banking. "These are often families or entrepreneurs with interests in different countries."

In May of last year, Banque de Luxembourg acquired HSH Nordbank Private Banking, the private client business of the Kiel and Hamburg-headquartered firm. At the time the bank said that over the past three years it has invested €150 million to boost the growth in these areas.

In a statement regarding the Lloyds acquisition, Ahlborn said: "External growth is one of the ways we have chosen to develop," adding that the firm is also launching two private banking centres in Belgium.