As a consequence, HVB is operating exclusively in Germany, where it mainly focuses on private clients business and corporate banking, customer-related capital market activities and wealth management.

The merger was conceived as a defensive move favored by the Bavarian authorities, against the prospect of a hostile takeover of Bayerische Vereinsbank by Deutsche Bank which had been rumored since 1996.

Within that Group, BA-CA was responsible for the CEE countries, and bought, amongst others, the Bulgarian bank Biochim, the Serbian Eksimbanka and the Romanian Banca Comerciala Ion Țiriac.

HVB CEO Albrecht Schmidt [de] later estimated the real-estate encumbrances to have cropped up "unexpectedly" to around DM 3.5 billion.

The public prosecutor of Munich I also initiated preliminary proceedings against Martini and other management board members of the former Hypo-Bank, which were ended in 2001 against the payment of fines.

In March 2003, HVB's property financing subsidiary Hypo Real Estate was spun off and floated on the stock market.

In 2006, HVB took over the corporate clients portfolio of Westfalenbank AG, which had been founded in 1921 by leading companies in the Rhineland-Westphalian industrial district on Bochum.

[5] In a second step, the German parent entity Bayerische Hypo- und Vereinsbank Aktiengesellschaft was renamed UniCredit Bank AG on 15 December 2008 (amongst other reasons, due to a perceived risk of confusion with the troubled Hypo Real Estate), without that affecting the HVB branding strategy.

Its cultural commitment extends from the work of the Hypo Cultural Foundation, with the Kunsthalle [de] in Munich, right through to the sponsorship of music festivals and international competitions (e.g. Bayreuther Festspiele, Rheingau Musik Festival, Bachfest Leipzig, Richard-Strauss-Festival and the singing competition Competizione dell'Opera).

For more than 30 years, the bank has been supporting young artists with its own cultural promotion programme, Jugend kulturell.

This includes a series of events throughout Germany, exhibitions in the various genres of the Fine Arts and an annual competition for the Jugend kulturell Award.

[8] In the context of the judicial scandal involving Gustl Mollath, UniCredit is named as the legal successor of HypoVereinsbank, which failed to forward an internal audit report[9] on customers' capital transfer to Switzerland to the public prosecutor.