Royal Bank of Scotland, the owner of UK private bank Coutts, is looking to sell all or part of the Asian operations it acquired when it bought Dutch bank ABN Amro, along with some of its US assets, according to The Telegraph.

The report said that RBS is understood to be considering selling its retail banking operations in India, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong, along with the Midwest US commercial banking business it acquired when it bought Charter One.  The bank is thought to wish to retain its US East Coast banking operations however, the paper said.

RBS declined to comment, but the paper quoted a source familiar with the matter as having said: "We will sell any business if we think there is a better owner who places a higher valuation on it than we do."

Stephen Hester, who took over as RBS chief executive in November, has said he will consider all options to shrink the bank and re-establish a UK focus, while still maintaining an international presence. 

RBS has been partly nationalised by the UK government after suffering massive losses in the credit crunch.  It was announced earlier this month that the bank’s chairman, Sir Tom McKillop, had stepped down three months before his previously scheduled departure date.

Sir Tom had been criticised for not doing enough to curb an ambitious expansion drive by RBS and its involvement in ventures such as the 2007 takeover of ABN Amro. RBS, along with Spain’s Santander , purchased ABN Amro for a total of about €73 billion at what was then the height of the merger and acquisition boom.