RBS mulls sale of Asian corporate banking biz: Source

The Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc is looking to put most of its Asian corporate banking business up for sale, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.

Chief Executive Officer Ross McEwan, 57, was to hold a series of meetings in Singapore on Sunday to consider ways to scale back the lender's Asian business, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the meetings are private. A spokesman for RBS in London declined to comment. The lender said last month that it's shutting its Japanese trading business.

Since taking over in 2013, McEwan has been selling units and cutting jobs outside of the UK as he seeks to focus on the bank's domestic market to help reverse six straight annual losses. RBS took bids for its Coutts International private bank last month and raised $3 billion in September by selling shares in its US subsidiary, Citizens Financial Group Inc.

The bank has about 2,000 employees in the Asia-Pacific region that could be affected, said the person with knowledge of the matter. RBS would probably keep some operations in Singapore offering clients dollar, euro and yen fixed-income products, the person added.

RBS's corporate and institutional banking division is led in the Asia-Pacific region by Pierre Ferland, who is responsible for a 10-country network offering clients foreign exchange, interest rates, fixed income, debt capital markets and transaction services, according to the lender's website.

The 80 per cent taxpayer-owned lender is selling assets outside of the UK to help boost capital as McEwan plans to return RBS to full private ownership. The bank last year dismissed most of its team overseeing debt capital markets in central and eastern Europe, West Asia and Africa amid a review of operations outside the UK.

RBS had £27 billion ($40.9 billion) of credit risk assets in the Asia-Pacific region at the end of June out of £551.6 billion of assets globally, according to the most recent data made available by the bank in quarterly earnings reports.

McEwan said in February he wants RBS to increase its UK assets from 60 per cent to 80 per cent of its global business as part of his plan to shrink in scale while boosting profitability. The bank had 302.8 billion pounds of UK credit risk assets, or 55 per cent of the total, at the end of June. North America was the next biggest region with 101.3 billion pounds.