Erste Bank Hungary, part of Austria’s Erste Group Bank, is to acquire the Hungarian wealth management unit of BNP Paribas in a deal which will bring in 400 clients and around HUF60 billion ($267 million) in assets under management.

The terms of the deal, which is still awaiting the necessary regulatory approvals, were not disclosed. A date for the closure of the transaction will be set once the deal has been given the green light.

Following the acquisition Erste will increase its market share of Hungary’s wealth management market from 9 to 12 per cent, the bank said in a statement. Erste Bank’s Hungarian private banking unit currently has HUF150 billion in assets under management, while as a whole the group’s private banking unit has €13.5 billion ($16.6 billion) across its businesses in Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Croatia and Hungary.

New figures from BloChamps Capital suggest that Hungary’s wealth management market is really hotting up and the country’s high net worth population has ballooned in recent years.

A study by the consultancy recently revealed that the number of Hungarian HNW individuals served by private banks has more than doubled in the past six years. The country’s wealth management sector is now serving 44,000 HNW individuals with a combined wealth of HUF2.5 trillion – a figure up over 100 per cent since 2005 – and some 5,000 people in Hungary have net wealth of over $1.2 million.