Bank of the West has further expanded its footprint in Los Angeles by launching a new wealth management office in Beverly Hills to serve high net worth and affluent clients.

Besides Beverly Hills, the bank has wealth management offices in downtown LA and Pasadena, with an overall total of seven wealth management centers in North America. The new office is located at 9401 Wilshire Boulevard.

Over the past two years the bank has opened up offices in San Francisco, San Jose and Palo Alto, as well as the more central location of Denver, CO.

As previously reported by Family Wealth Report, the new centers are part of a wealth management model the bank is pioneering, of opening dedicated centers for its wealthy clientele where they can access a range of services in one place.

Meanwhile, in a similar move earlier this year the wealth and investment management division of Barclays launched a Beverly Hills office as part of an investment plan for growth in the US.

“Los Angeles County has the second largest population of ultra high net worth individuals in the US,” Brian Sears, managing director and regional manager for LA at Barclays, said at the time.

According to the Capgemini US Metro Wealth Index for 2012, the top five metro areas in terms of wealthy resident numbers are: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC and San Francisco. New York had over 727,100 high net worth individuals among its populace last year, having experienced 1 per cent growth, while Los Angeles came in at around 255,600, a drop of 0.3 per cent.

Bank of the West Wealth Management provides wealth planning consulting, investment management, personal banking and trust services. The group is part of BNP Paribas’ global wealth management business, which has some $10 billion in assets under management in the US and $354 billion in AuM globally, as at end-December 2012.