Michael Lagopoulos, chief executive and global head of Royal Bank of Canada's International Wealth Management arm, has relocated from Toronto to London.

The move signals RBC’s commitment to growing its wealth management businesses outside North America. And it is looking to expand its international wealth management business and to continue to attract new clients in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Caribbean, Latin America and Asia, according to a statement.

“The British Isles are at the heart of our existing international wealth management operations," said Mr Lagopoulos. "Going forward, we will be looking to leverage our strength as an established global player to become a top 10 global wealth manager with strong UK capabilities.

“London is a great city in which to live and work and, in my mind, rightly deserves the accolade of being regarded as the premier financial services market in the world for private client wealth management. Of course we believe that Switzerland and many other locations will continue to be very important as well and we will continue to invest there and around the world.”

RBC Wealth Management offers wealth management and private banking services, including trust and structured solutions, tax and estate planning advice, as well as custody and discretionary and advisory investment services to over 33,000 high net worth individuals and institutions through 33 offices in the British Isles, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Caribbean, Latin America, the US and Canada.

The firm has over C$500 billion ($511 billion) of global assets under administration, C$150 billion of global assets under management and over 4,000 client facing professionals around the world.