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Spain's BBVA confident of China wealth expansion

Source: Reuters - Wed 6th Oct 2010

BBVA, Spain's second biggest bank, is confident its private banking business in China will become a key growth driver like its Latin American franchise, a top BBVA banker said on Tuesday.

Despite the strong competition in the Chinese market from big international banks such as HSBC, BBVA believes it can successfully apply its tried and tested onshore LatAm business model to the growing middle class population in China.

"There is a lot of competition but we are setting up a private banking operation as an offshoot from a strong commercial bank, which is what we have done in Brazil and Mexico, amongst other places" Enrique Marazuela, Chief Investment Officer at BBVA Private Banking said at the Reuters Global Private Banking Summit.

BBVA has a strategic joint venture with Citic Bank, China's six biggest lender by market value, to develop private banking and auto financing operations. The Spanish bank also has a 15 percent stake in Citic.

BBVA focuses more on the simply affluent rather than high net worth individuals, providing private banking services for clients with financial assets of 300,000 euros and over.

In China, the bar at present is lower, with $100,000 as a starting point, Marazuela said.

The Spanish lender is managing to break even in China, however, even after investments in personnel and technology.

"We are not making money, but we are not making a loss. We are breaking even at the moment. China is expanding rapidly and we expect wealth is going to grow in the future" Marazuela said.

In 2010 and 2011 aggregate Asia-Pacific growth is likely to outpace the world economy, with Emerging Asia, and in particular China, leading the advances, according to data provided by Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and Capgemini's 2010 Asia-Pacific Wealth Report.

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