The banking group announced a rise in pre-tax income at the segment that covers wealth management, while the parent firm, as expected, booked the impact of the massive settlement surrounding breaches of money laundering sanctions enforced by the US.

Pre-tax income at BNP Paribas’ investment solutions arm – the segment covering private banking and wealth management – stood at €2.525 billion ($2.87 billion) in 2014, a 12.5 per cent year-on-year increase.

Wealth and asset management pre-tax income in the fourth quarter of 2014 was €176 million, compared with €173 million a year before, and up from €164 million in the previous quarter of 2014, the Paris-listed lender said in its results today.

“At wealth and asset management, the objective of wealth management will be to consolidate its number one position in the eurozone and number five worldwide: it will continue its international business development, in particular in Asia, and it will continue the digitalisation and the expansion of its product offering,” BNP Paribas said.

Among other details of the investment solutions arm, BNP Paribas said revenues in 2014 were €6.543 billion, a 3.4 per cent annual rise.

For the entire bank, pre-tax income was €3.149 billion, down sharply from €8.239 billion in 2013. Excluding one-off items, such as last year’s massive US settlement over breaches of sanctions against blacklisted regimes such as Iran, pre-tax profit had risen 8.9 per cent on the year before.

BNP Paribas said that at the group level, total revenues in 2014 were €39.168 billion, a 2 per cent year-on-year rise. Revenues of the operating divisions all rose, including at investment solutions, and were up 2.1 per cent versus the 2013 level.

The group booked the impact of the comprehensive settlement with the US authorities regarding the review of certain dollar transactions which included, among other things, the payment by BNP Paribas of a total of $8.97 billion in penalties (€6.6 billion).

Given the amounts already provisioned, BNP Paribas booked this year a one-off charge for a total amount of €6 billion, of which €5.750 million in penalties, and €250 million corresponding to the future costs of the remediation plan announced as part of the comprehensive settlement.

The bank said its balance sheet is “rock-solid”. At 31 December 2014, the fully loaded Basel 3 common equity tier one ratio was 10.3 per cent. This takes into account the results of the stress test last year by the European Central Bank and early introduction of what is called the prudent valuation adjustment.