(Repeats story published late on Monday)
(For other news from the Reuters Global Private Banking Summit,
click on http://www.reuters.com/summit/GlobalWealthManagement10)
By Ian Simpson
GENEVA, Oct 4 (Reuters) - UniCredit's <CRDI.MI> private bank
has a return on assets of 76 basis points (bps), ahead of the
market average of 70 but below about 90 bps before the financial
crisis, unit chief Andreas Woelfer said on Monday.
The private bank at UniCredit, the biggest lender in central
and eastern Europe, has seen its returns drop 15 to 18 basis
points from its levels three years ago, in part because of low
interest rates, he told the Reuters Global Private Banking
Summit.
"Our return on assets is 76 basis points currently which is
above market. In 2007, pre-crisis, we were around 90 basis
points," Woelfer said.
Profitability is expected to be better by the end of the
year as the cost-to-income ratio improves, he said.
The rise would be an "internal effect" as UniCredit shifts
clients with more than 500,000 euros ($684,700) in investable
assets to its private bank, Woelfer told the summit at Reuters
headquarters in Geneva.
The shift will also boost the private bank's total financial
assets to 177 billion euros from 137 billion euros, he said.
"All customers below 500,000 will be migrated to retail
colleagues," he said, adding that Germany and Austria were
completed and Italy would finish by the end of the year.
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For a graphic on UniCredit Private Banking's market share,
click on:
http://r.reuters.com/gef76p
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He foresaw "very good growth rates" in eastern Europe and in
Russian, with expansion in double digits in some markets.
Turkey, Russia and the Czech Republic in particular were seeing
onshore growth, he said.
The growth would come as customers who had kept their assets
in offshore banks faced government pressure to repatriate the
funds, Woelfer said.
He said he doubted UniCredit would see inflows under a
planned dual tax agreement between Germany and Switzerland
expected to be completed by the end of October.
Under the plan Germany would accept the Swiss applying a
withholding tax on German assets in return for more cooperation
in tax evasion cases. []
"We sold our offshore Swiss platform some weeks ago. What
we do see is that our Swiss competitors are investing heavily in
the German onshore market," Woelfer said.
(For other news from the Reuters Global Private Banking
Summit, click on
http://www.reuters.com/summit/GlobalWealthManagement10)
(Reporting by Ian Simpson)
($1=.7303 Euro)
