JC Flower, the US – based financial investment firm also entered the list of bidder for the 318 branches of RBS put on sell. The other firms in the league are Virgin Money, Spanish Groups Santander and BBVA and National Australia Bank.

As per few analysts tracking the deal, Santander is the most favorite among all the bidders.

However, Virgin money, which had earlier sold 21 per cent stake to Wilbur Ross, the US billionaire and turnaround expert, might just give Santander a run for its money, analysts expected.

Considering Satander to be the logical winner of the bidding process, Ian Gordon, analyst at stockbroker Exane BNP Paribas Santander reasoned that it’s the one, which needs the RBS branches and its small business clients. The Spanish Bank is already in the process of rebranding its British business, which includes Abbey and Alliance & Leicester, with the Santander name.

Earlier on Monday, The Scotsman had revealed that the billionaire US turnaround specialist, Wilbur Ross had bought a 21 per cent stake in Virgin Money for £100 million as a step towards the bid for branches.

According to people close to the bidding process, the offer pegged at a floor price of £1.5 billion for the book value of the business could come under scrutiny; especially from the loan quality point of view.

It was expected that the process would result in reducing the number of bidders to two or three. RBS has not commented on this topic.