Yes Bank, IndusInd Bank in talks to buy Royal Bank of Scotland's Indian retail assets: report

Private sector lenders Yes Bank and IndusInd Bank are in talks to buy the Indian retail assets of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), media reports said.

The talks come after Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp (HSBC) last year abandoned plans to buy the RBS assets due to Reserve Bank's stringent bank takeover laws.

Under the deal, HSBC was to pay a premium of up to $95 million over the tangible net asset value of RBS's retail business.

RBS had in 2010 announced that it would sell its Indian retail and commercial banking business, worth around $1.8 billion (Rs8,500 crore). RBS Indian retail and commercial banking business has 31 branches, with a customer base of 400,000 and revenues of £42 million.

In India, RBS, 82 per-cent owned by the UK government, acquired the Indian assets of ABN as part of the acquisition of the Dutch bank along with Santander of Spain and Fortis of Belgium.

RBS has been hiving off non-core assets after it received £45.5 billion ($70 billion) bailout from the UK government, the biggest bailout of any bank in the world, during the global financial crisis in 2008.

It has since cut thousand of jobs, sold several assets, including its aircraft-leasing business, its Galaxy Pub Estate that had 918 pubs in the UK, a controlling 80.01-per cent interest in its credit-card unit Global Merchant Services, 318 branches in the UK and Wales among others.