The investment solutions arm of BNP Paribas, including wealth management, logged a strong set of results across the board, the French banking giant said today.

The investment solutions arm of France’s BNP Paribas, the segment that includes wealth management functions, posted pre-tax income of €501 million ($644.7 million) in the third quarter of this year, a surge of 98 per cent on the same three months of last year.

The Paris-listed banking group’s investment solutions business logged revenues of €1.516 billion, a 3.7 per cent increase year-on-year, it said today in a statement.

Within the “wealth and asset management” group, revenues were €682 million, down from €714 million in the same period a year ago; pre-tax income was €180 million, compared with €183 million.

“Net asset inflows were positive in all the business units in the first nine months of the year, except for asset management: good asset inflows in wealth management, in particular in the domestic markets and in Asia; good contributions from insurance, especially in Asia (Taiwan, South Korea) and from personal investors, especially in Germany,” it said.

Investment solutions’ assets under management rose by 5.2 per cent compared to 31 December 2011 and 4.1 per cent compared to 30 September 2011, to €886 billion (€842 billion as at 31 December 2011), driven primarily by a positive performance effect (good performance of the equity markets).

Net asset inflows for the first nine months of the year totalled €0.9 billion and were penalised by a client’s (fund manager) decision in the third quarter to in-source a distribution contract. Excluding this effect, net asset inflows were +€12.2 billion for the first nine months of the year.

As at 30 September, the assets under management at the investment solutions’ arm were divided as follows: asset management: €408 billion; wealth management: €265 billion; insurance: €165 billion; personal investors: €35 billion; real estate services: €13 billion.

For the entire business, BNP Paribas said its group revenue in the third quarter was €9.693 billion, down from €10.032 billion in the same period last year.

“BNP Paribas delivered solid performances this quarter, rebounding compared to the third quarter 2011, which was impacted by the sovereign debt crisis,” the firm said.

“The group’s adaptation plan in response to new regulations is now completed, ahead of the disclosed schedule: CIB [corporate and investment banking] reduced its risk-weighted assets by €45 billion and the group’s common equity Tier 1 ratio was increased by 100 basis points as announced. The fully loaded (1) Basel 3 common equity Tier 1 ratio was 9.5 per cent as at 30 September 2012 and the 9 per cent target was therefore surpassed,” the bank said.

Explaining the 3.4 per cent fall in revenues across the entire banking empire, BNP Paribas said figures included two one-off significant revenue items for a total of -€347 million: an own credit adjustment (-€774 million) and an exceptional amortisation of the fair value adjustment of part of Fortis’ banking book due to early redemptions (+€427 million).