The investment bank, a unit of France's second largest retail bank Groupe BPCE, wants to generate most of its income outside its home market by 2017 and, as with other European competitors, has set its eyes on Asia as an engine for growth.

"We have been doing significantly better than the target. By the end of this year, Asia will account for 10 percent of our global corporate and investment banking business," Mignon said in an interview, adding that their goal for 2017 was 11 percent.

Undeterred by the economic slowdown in China, Mignon says the bank will continue to expand in the region and plans to grow its investment banking business by another 15 percent next year.

The bank opened this year a branch in Beijing in addition to its Shanghai presence to nurture relationships with China's state-owned firms.

But it is not planning to seek an onshore investment banking licence in China, where several global players are struggling to extract money out of local joint ventures.

"At this stage we do not feel we need it," said Mignon.

Mignon said Natixis, which manages around 40 billion euros (28 billion pounds) of client assets in Asia out of 800 billion globally, remained committed to Japan even as the country slides into a recession given local investors' immense appetite for high-yielding offshore products.

The bank is also looking to use a war chest of around 800 million euros for targeted acquisitions in the asset management space, the CEO said.

Natixis, known for its generous dividend policy, intends to keep its payout of 50 percent or more and will use excess capital for investments or for potential share buybacks.

"If we do not make acquisitions part of that capital will be returned to shareholders through a share buyback," Mignon said.

Natixis also last month ended all financing to coal power stations and mining projects, ahead of this week's meeting of global leaders in Paris to discuss climate change.

"The number one issue for us was: do we want to continue to finance projects that are significantly contributing to global warming?," he said. "It is quite obvious we should not do it when you have cleaner sources of energy."

(Editing by Miral Fahmy)

By Lisa Jucca and Lawrence White