Credit Suisse is to open an office of its Private Banking USA business in Houston, the fourth largest city in the US and home to an increasing number of high-net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals.

The office, which will open in the first quarter of 2008, forms part of the bank’s strategy to expand into the nation's leading wealth markets. Private Banking USA now operates 16 offices across the US, having added locations in Irvine, CA and Rye Brook, NY in 2006, and Greenwich, CT and Philadelphia, PA earlier this year.

Jay O'Neil will join the firm as head of the Houston office, effective 2 November 2007. He joins from Merrill Lynch, where he was most recently the market leader for the Private Banking & Investment Group in the New England and Mid-Atlantic regions.

Prior to that role, he was sales manager of the Merrill Lynch Silicon Valley Complex in San Jose, California, where he managed more than 150 employees in five offices.

Private Banking USA operates out of 16 offices across the US.