The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp ltd, better known HSBC, is ready to acquire the retail and small and medium enterprises business of Royal bank of Scotland Plc (RBS) in India, China and Malaysia.

HSBC joined the bidders' race for buying select assets of RBS after failure of talks between Standard Chartered Bank Plc and RBS due to differences over asset valuation.

RBS has already approached RBI for approval. The acquisition in India is expected to be successful since RBI has given clearance for the transfer of RBS branch licences to HSBC.

RBS has 31 branches in India and employs 10,000 people. the bank acquired the Asian operations of ABN Amro in 2007. However, ABN Amro continues to conduct business in India under its original name.

The ABN Amro acquisition was made through a consortium, along with Fortis group of the UK and Banco Santander SA of Spain.

HSBC operates in India through a network of 47 branches and its asset base in March was Rs. 94,620 crore.

Amongst the foreign banks present in India, Citibank is the largest with a an asset base of Rs. 1.05 trillion in March, followed by Standard Chartered Bank with Rs 97,492 crore.