In the past two weeks, Royal Bank of Scotland has found a buyer for its Indian operations, KBC has offloaded its global convertible bonds and Asian equities businesses and Lloyds Banking Group has sold the old HBOS private equity business.

European banks that received state aid during the financial crisis have increased their efforts to shed assets and meet EU-imposed deadlines. For the bankers running the process, there is a balancing act between getting on with the task at hand and avoiding accusations of running a firesale. And, say analysts, the difficult part - selling massive non-core loan books into a saturated market - is still to come.