Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), which is looking out for a buyer for its Indian retail operations and still uses the ABN Amro brandname, is likely to retain six -seven branches out of the total of 31 it has in India.
The bank would like to continue its business in the segments like wholesale banking, investment banking and wealth management. Requesting anonymity, a spokesperson of the bank told FE that serious talks are on with the prospective buyers and the process is likely to be completed within a few months from now.
The buyer may be either a foreign bank or a domestic one, said the spokesperson.
According to him the processes of selling the retail operations is still at negotiation stage and is yet to reach a stage where any approval of the Reserve Bank of India is necessary.
However, international as well as domestic banking industry feel that the RBI would refuse the transfer of the branch licences to the prospective buyer automatically as the RBS is not selling their entire operations but a part of it.
?This may be reason why not many foreign banks which don?t have operations are interested to buy RBS retail operations,? said a foreign bank chief adding that any RBS deal including retail operations along with maximum number of branches would be selling like a hot cake.
?The uncertainty about the ownership of branch licenses is delaying the transaction and keeping serious player out,? he said.
Again, it was purely up to the RBS if it would continue to hold the branch licences with itself or will surrender them to the RBI, said RBS spokesperson.
