BNP Paribas has hired a former Merrill Lynch banker in London, in its most senior external appointment yet to the new team it forged in January to manage relationships with institutional clients across its range of capital market products.

Stefano Blotto, a former Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs banker who most recently spent 12 years at Merrill Lynch and is a former co-head of the US bank's institutional client coverage group, has joined BNP Paribas to spearhead European coverage of the bank's institutional clients, according to a statement from the French bank.