Credit Agricole Indosuez Luxembourg, part of the merchant banking arm of the French banking and insurance group Credit Agricole, is establishing an office in Dublin.

The office will offer trustee and custody services, along with fund administration and transfer agency services to the banks's institutional clients. It also intends to expand its aircraft leasing business.

A total of 65 jobs - mainly graduate level professional positions to carry out the fund management and transfer agency - will be created over the next three years by the bank.

The trustee and custody services will be offered through Credit Agricole Indosuez Luxembourg's Dublin branch, with fund administration and transfer agency services being provided through its sister company Fastnet Ireland, the bank said.

Fastnet, which operates in Belgium, Luxembourg, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Ireland, is a leading third party service provider with more than 2,450 funds and assets of almost €260 billion under administration.

Credit Agricole said that it was targeting the €220 billion fund management market serviced in Ireland and it intends to become one of the top four players in the market within three years.

The bank also said it would introduce its specially developed fund management IT tool called "cloning", which allows for the globalisation of management and administration of assets belonging to several independent legal entities. The cloning technique meets the needs of fund managers who want to co-manage funds with different legal structures, it said.

"Credit Agricole chose Dublin due to the city's position as one of the fastest growing funds centres in the EU," said Ms Clara Dunne, senior country officer at the bank.