Singapore's DBS Group and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp OCBC), along with Swiss bank Julius Baer, have submitted a non-binding bid for acquiring Barclays' Asian private wealth business, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The British bank has been exploring options to sell its Singapore-based wealth unit over the last year.
Barclays' Asian private wealth business is valued at S$600 million. The unit has offices in Hong Kong, India, Japan and Singapore.
As per Barclays' website, the global revenue from its wealth management business dropped 17 per cent to S$460 million in the third quarter of the last year compared with the previous year.
The Asian wealth management unit's sale plan comes even as major European banks are re-aligning their strategy in Asia due cost pressure s back home.
Earlier Reuters had reported, citing sources, that Credit Suisse was also considering a bid for Barclays' wealth unit.
According to the database of Private Banker International, Barclays managed $36 billion in private banking assets in Asia while DBS manage twice as much at $73.2 billion.
All banks involved in the talks declined to comment.
