Santander UKPlc is looking into a restructured asset transfer deal to acquireRoyal Bank of Scotland GroupPlc's Williams & Glyn business, Sky News reported July 17.

A deal willinclude Williams & Glyn's more than 300 branches, approximately £24 billionin deposits and roughly 2 million clients. However, it will not require RBS tocomplete creating a separate IT banking platform for the business.

Sources told Sky that RBS and the Banco Santander SA unit are in talks about such a deal,but stressed that it was unclear whether the plan was feasible.

The deal will limit the cost of carving out a banking platform forWilliams & Glyn. RBS is said to have already spent more than £1.2 billionon the project, Sky News noted. RBS had said that the total cost of the project will likely exceedits initial £1.7 billion estimate.

RBS said inApril that it is exploring alternative means for separating Williams & Glynas the complexities of its customer and product mix made the bank's plan tocreate a cloned banking platform very challenging.

In 2012, talks to sell the business to Santander UK on IT issues connected withthe separation of the branch network.