Hypovereinsbank Plans Eastward Expansion

German bank Hypovereinsbank announced on Tuesday its intention to expand its Central European banking operations after announcing better-than-expected progress in the emerging market.

Announcing that Hypovereinsbank profits from around 900 eastern and central European branches had grown by around 200 million euro ($201.9 million) this year, the bank's CEO, Gerhard Randa, said conditions in the Eastern and Central Europe regions were ripe to enable the bank to massively expand its private banking businesses there.

In the 13 countries now vying for EU membership, every second person has a bank account, the company said. Hypovereinsbank plans to open "at least 60 new branches" in Eastern Europe and aims to increase its customers from 900,000 to 4.4 million over the next three years, Randa said.