Troubled RBS is to sell big slice of Asian assets

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ANZ is likely to pay about $775 million (£464 million) for the retail and commercial banking operations of RBS in six Asian markets as the bank attempts to focus on improving its UK operations.

The deal does not include RBS's Indian or Chinese operations, which are seen as the prized assets in its Asian portfolio, as ANZ does not have a licence to trade in those countries. However, it does include Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Taiwan.

RBS, which lost £24 billion last year and is this week expected to report further underlying losses, is in desperate need to get its finances back in shape.

The bank, led by Stephen Hester, is expected to report bad losses of £8 billion for the half year, along with poor underlying trading.

While it will be able to report a headline profit of about £1.2 billion for the half year, this will only be achieved thanks to the one-off accounting profits of around £4.5 billion from buying back its debt at a cut price.

RBS is expected to set a series of five and three-year targets on profits and risk reduction.