British banking giant HSBC Holdings Plc. has made a bid of about 1 billion pounds ($1.63 billion) for Dutch financial services group ING Groep NV's (ING) private banking businesses, reported The Sunday Times.

The report said DBS, a Singaporean investment fund, and Julius Baer, the Swiss wealth manager, would also likely bid for the unit and that a preferred bidder would be named in the next 10 days.

ING, which has put its private banking operations in Switzerland and Asia up for sale to pay down €10 billion bailout funds it received from the Dutch government in October, is also considering plans to split its insurance arm from its banking business, said the report.

In July, ING sold its Annuity and Mortgage Businesses in Chile to Corp Group Vida Chile, S.A. In 2008, the Annuity and Mortgage businesses in Chile generated combined pre-tax earnings of approximately €35 million.

The Sunday Times said DBS was interested only in the Asian unit but that Julius Baer was keen on both assets.

In Asia, ING's private banking operations covers the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia, as well as China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.

Since receiving €10 billion from the Dutch government last year to save its shares from collapsing amid concerns that it was running out of capital, ING has been struggling to return to financial health.

The bank returned to profit in the second quarter of 2009 after losing three straight quarters (See: ING back in the black; expects market turbulence to continue).

The company's second-quarter underlying net profit of €229 million shows improvement from underlying net loss of €305 million in Q1.

The Group's operating expenses were down 5.5 per cent from the second quarter of 2008 and 2.4 per cent from Q1.

As on 30 June 2009, ING's Asian private banking operations had around $16 billion of assets under management, while its Swiss operations had around $15 billion of assets under management.