UniCredit mulls boosting Swiss private banking

GENEVA (Reuters) - Italy's leading bank, UniCredit, is looking to boost its private banking presence in Switzerland to better serve the large pool of off-shore clients it acquired with HVB, a senior UniCredit banker told Reuters.

UniCredit (CRDI.MI) became Europe's sixth-largest bank by market value thanks to its acquisition last year of Germany's number two lender, HVB Group HVMG.DE, in the region's biggest cross-border bank deal ever.

The takeover made UniCredit the largest bank in the high-growth markets of central and eastern Europe and a top player in Germany, Italy and Austria -- three traditional markets for off-shore business in Switzerland.

"We can't serve all the clients just out of Lugano. We have to be more present in Switzerland," Dario Prunotto, general manager for UniCredit Private Banking, told a Reuters Wealth Management Summit on Thursday.

"This can be done -- not necessarily by acquiring another bank, but maybe by growing in the business structure."

Switzerland's heavily fragmented private banking sector is on the radar screen of several big European players.

One of Sal Oppenheim's partners told Reuters on Wednesday it was eyeing acquisition opportunities in the Alpine country, while the head of BNP Paribas's (BNPP.PA) Swiss division said he was also on the lookout for a private banking buy.

SEEKING MORE MARKET SHARE

UniCredit is the largest player in Italy's private banking sector, which manages over 800 billion euros ($1,015 billion) in assets, according to estimates by AIPB, Italy's private banking association.

UniCredit Private Banking, the group's Italian bank that is fully dedicated to the sector, manages 61 billion euros, but that figure rises to about 100 billion euros including UniCredit's foreign operations.

UniCredit currently controls 6 percent of Italy's private banking market, but Prunotto said there was room to tap into the vast pool of prospective Italian clients thanks to the bank's 150 dedicated offices around the country.

"In Italy only 30 percent of wealth is concentrated in the five or six biggest cities. The rest is spread around the country in the provinces. And only 60 percent of clients are managed by a specialised bank," said Prunotto.

"There is great room to improve our market share. We can achieve the critical mass in cities, where for other players, this is just impossible."

UniCredit Private Banking posted a healthy 17 percent growth of assets under management last year, but Prunotto said the pace was slower this year.

"We acquired net new money of more than 1 billion euros in first six months, but the pace of the market is not the same."

Under its strategic plan, the bank is forecasting to grow on average by 8 percent of its assets over the next three years.