Credit Suisse Q1 net profit 2.1 bln Sfr

The logo of Swiss bank Credit Swiss is pictured on a big screen as pedestrians are reflected in a window, in Bern February 11, 2010.

ZURICH (Reuters) - Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX) said it saw opportunities to extend market share gains in investment banking after just topping analysts' forecasts with results that show competition in the segment is toughening up.

The bank said net new money inflows from wealthy clients had improved from the previous quarter despite expectations by some analysts the franchise could have been damaged by a German tax evasion investigation into 1,100 of its clients.

Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second-largest bank behind UBS (UBSN.VX)(UBS.N), posted a first quarter net profit of 2.1 billion Swiss francs ($1.97 billion) on Thursday against analysts' expectations of 2 billion francs.

Credit Suisse was able to emerge quickly and without state aid from the financial crisis and cashed in strong trading gains throughout 2009 while many U.S. and European rivals struggled.

But a year on, several competitors are back in the fray. Along with JP Morgan JP.N and Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Morgan Stanley (MS.N), Citi (C.N) and Bank of America (BAC.N) all beat analysts expectations with strong trading-driven first quarter earnings, setting the bar higher for European players.

And even domestic rival UBS, which was hit hard by the subprime crisis, is competitive in areas such as forex trading and fixed income and said last week its first quarter pretax profit would be 2.5 billion francs.

(Editing by Louise Heavens)