Private equity firm JC Flowers had approached UK's Lloyds Banking Group regarding a bid for the TSB business. The TSB unit was divided from the part state owned bank earlier this month. This was according to a report from the Sunday Telegraph without citing sources.

Lloyds had been working on a stock market listing for its TSB unit next year. Currently, 32.7% of Lloyds is publicly owned after the government sold 6% stake last week. The bank was mandated to sell more than its 600 branches. Lloyds had rebranded its unit to Trustee Savings Bank after EU regulators as a penalty to the company for getting GBP20 billion government bailout fund during the 2008 financial crisis.

The Sunday Telegraph said on its report that Lloyds received interest for its branches from a number of PE firms including JC Flowers.

The approaches were said to be on early stage but were taken seriously by Lloyds' management, said the newspaper report.