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...
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