Baudouin Prot, chief executive of BNP Paribas, has ruled the bank out of a bid battle for Abbey National, the UK bank. Abbey could already be the target of a counter offer from UK rival HBOS despite agreeing a £8.1bn (€12.2bn) takeover from Spain's Banco Santander Central Hispano.

Prot said: "Our strategy centres on organic growth and targeted acquisitions where execution risk and value creation have to meet our really quite strict criteria.