In an effort to postpone near-term needs, is mullingan asset sale to reinforce its capital base, O Estado de S.Paulo reported, citing an anonymous source withknowledge of the matter.

The state-run bank may sell a 5% to 10% stake in its cardsbusiness and third-party asset management operations through either an initialpublic offering or a joint venture.

According to the publication, such moves are underconsideration to prevent a capital injection need of up to some 10 billionBrazilian reais in 2017.

Furthermore, the bank's asset management arm , with over a 20% share of theBrazilian market, has been recently approached by investment banks, mostlyinternational players who are eyeing the Brazilian bank's distributionchannels, the report said.

The state-run bank currently has a card payment jointventure with CieloS.A. that is managed by Banco do Brasil and .

As of July 15, US$1was equivalent to 3.27 Brazilian reais.