Canada’s Scotiabank (NYSE: BNS) plans to launch a wealth management center in Panama this year called Scotia Private Client Group that will be integrated with its newly acquired wealth management business in that country from BNP Paribas.

“The acquisition adds immediate scale and a significant client and asset under management base, making Scotiabank one of the largest wealth management providers in Panama,” Dan Wright, senior VP of international wealth management at Scotiabank, told BNamericas.

Until now, Scotiabank’s wealth management business in Panama was virtually non-existent or immaterial in size. The bank had plans to open Scotia Private Banking Centre to organically grow the business when it started to look at BNP Paribas’ Panamanian operation, he said.

“It also strategically positions us to become a significant player in the wealth management business in Latin America, from a base that is a widely recognized private banking jurisdiction.”

Scotiabank launched last year a wealth management center in Miami called Scotia Private Client Group in order to provide private banking services to high net worth individuals, and use it as a hub for the bank’s expanding wealth management services in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Scotiabank already operates centers in the Bahamas, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, the Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos, El Salvador, Puerto Rico and Peru.

The bank also plans to enter Chile in 2010, according to Wright.

In Mexico the bank has three private banking offices, and the plan is to convert them to Scotia Private Client Group centers later this year.

The BNP Paribas-Scotiabank deal was announced earlier this week and also includes the French bank’s Grand Cayman and the Bahamas unit. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed and it is expected to close in 3Q10.

Scotiabank has offered personal and commercial financial services in Panama since 1974.

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