Aiming to draw in family office and UHNW clients, Barclays Private Bank has brought in wealth management talent from Deutsche to shore up services in France and Italy.

Barclays Private Bank has chosen Paris and Milan as locations to bolster services to family offices and ultra-high net worth clients in Europe.

This comes as the global bank has been pouring investment into its Dublin base to strengthen services to European clients.

Bernard Corneau has been named head of private bank coverage for France; and Carlo Baronio head of private bank coverage for Italy. Both will co-locate alongside the bank’s corporate and investment banking teams already established in both cities. Corneau joined at the beginning of March and Baronio will be joining on 1 April. They will report to Europe head of private banking Pat McCormack.

The new country heads will help connect local family offices and ultra-wealthy clients with other investment solutions and banking products being offered at the bank; most notably taking advantage of the strong alliance and global reach of its corporate and investment bank, the UK-based bank said.

“These appointments demonstrate our ambition to be a truly European bank, and will help us harness the synergies between our strong business platforms across the continent,” Francesco Ceccato, CEO for Barclays Europe, said.

Corneau was previously at Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management where he was head of France, advising UHNW clients on complex investment solutions, including private investment. Before that he was in charge of UHNW clients at Credit Suisse.

Baronio is moving over from Barclays Investment Bank where he was a director in the Italian debt capital markets origination team.

The chief executive for private banking Jean-Christophe Gerard said that France and Italy in particular are “where we are investing for future growth.”

“Having private bank professionals on the ground will enable the private bank to be closer to the needs of local clients whilst capitalising on our Dublin platform, from which we are building our EEA footprint,” he said.