RBS transactions executive clears the air on Asia strategy

Rumours have been flying that Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is selling its Asia-Pacific transactions business. But despite this chatter, and the fact that there are keen potential buyers, an executive at the bank says the venerable British institution is keeping investment and transaction banking and has plans to grow in the region.

RBS bought a significant chunk of ABN AMRO's assets, including its transaction banking business in Asia, for £10 billion ($16 billion) in 2007. Bad timing is an understatement, as within a year, the bank had written down nearly £7.7 billion of the Dutch institution's assets. When the British government took an equity stake in RBS last autumn, the future of those assets immediately came into question.

In August this year, the bank sold some of its commercial and retail assets in Asia to ANZ for $550 million. At the time of the sale, ANZ chief executive Michael Smith said the bank had not purchased RBS's Asian transaction banking business because it was "simply not for sale". MCB Bank bought RBS's assets in Pakistan for $87.4 million later the same month.

The British financial institution is still in negotiations with potential buyers over assets in China and India. HSBC and Standard Chartered are both said to be part of those negotiations.

At the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication's (Swift) annual Sibos conference last week, RBS's global transaction services chief executive, Brian Stevenson, spoke to FinanceAsia to clear the air over the bank's strategy in Asia-Pacific.