Bank Austria was formed in 1991 by the merger of the troubled Länderbank and Vienna's Zentralsparkasse, in practice a takeover of the former by the latter led by its general director René Alfons Haiden [de]; the merged entity became Austria's largest bank.

Restructuring led to the creation of a new holding for BA-CA foreign assets in eastern Europe, the transformation of the Polish activity to a full affiliate, the shrinking of BA-CA per se to a smaller market, and the shrinking of HVB to the German market.

[citation needed] BA-CA acquired Koç Finansal Hizmetler (Turkey), Zagrebačka banka (Croatia), Bulbank (Bulgaria), Živnostenska banka (Czechia), UniBanka (Slovakia) and UniCredit Romania from UniCredit in that operation.

[1] In 2006 BA-CA continued its expansion in Russia by acquiring remaining shares in International Moscow Bank[citation needed] and 100% of institutional business of Aton Capital - a Russian brokerage.

In 2016, UniCredit took back from Bank Austria direct ownership of its affiliates in Central and Eastern Europe.