A source close to the bank said the books of The Royal Bank of Scotland Bhd were being opened to bidders and the bidding results would be made known in due time.

RBS Malaysia’s retail and commercial businesses will be sold alongside the global banking group’s other Asian operations.

The bank would retain its corporate banking businesses, the source said. This means RBS Group itself would maintain a presence in the country.

It is not known if it would also keep its wealth management unit. No further details were available at press time. RBS had not responded to queries by The Edge Financial Daily.

The restructuring comes at a time when RBS had just begun to aggressively expand its operations in Malaysia, particularly over the past two years.

According to its website, RBS Malaysia has five branches in the country, including one in Labuan. Part of RBS’ network came from ABN Amro Bank Bhd, which the bank had absorbed following a global takeover launched by RBS in 2007 of the Dutch group.

Last month, RBS Malaysia managing director Harry Naysmith said RBS was reviewing options, including a potential sale, of its retail businesses across the Asia-Pacific, including its operations here.

He said RBS, via ABN Amro Bank, had had a presence here since 1888 and had built up a strong global markets franchise with a growing global treasury services (GTS) business. Naysmith said RBS would continue to serve its corporate and institutional clients, providing solutions in the global markets and transactional banking space.

“Our priority for our retail customers and staff will be to ensure minimum disruption during this period and to remove uncertainty for them just as quickly as we can,” he had said in a statement.

Citing a source familiar with the matter, Reuters reported two days ago that RBS was in talks with three banks — HSBC Holdings plc, Standard Chartered plc and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) — on the possible sale of its Asian retail and commercial banking assets.

HSBC and StanChart already have their own set-ups in Malaysia, while ANZ holds a 19.17% stake in AMMB Holdings Bhd, the country’s fifth-largest banking group under the AmBank Group.

RBS, which is 70.3%-owned by the UK government, plans to exit or scale down its operations in up to 36 countries it is currently operating in after posting the biggest loss in British corporate history last year. The assets include operations in India and Pakistan and the price tag could total US$2 billion (RM7.2 billion).

RBS has said it wants to sell the Asian assets en bloc, which would be a faster and more certain process than a series of country sales. However, separate bids would be made for its Pakistan business, as it was listed separately.

The group has said it will cut 9,000 jobs over the next two years, half of them in Britain.

Three days ago, it was reported that three Pakistani banks, including MCB Bank Ltd which is 20% owned by Malayan Banking Bhd, had expressed interest in acquiring RBS Pakistan.

This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, April 17, 2009.