Fortis, Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander have confirmed an interest in making a takeover offer for Dutch bank ABN Amro.
In a statement, the banks said they had submitted a joint letter to ABN Amro expressing their interest in putting forward a proposal. ABN said on Friday it had received a letter from the three.
Last month ABN Amro and British bank Barclays revealed that they were in talks on a merger which would create the second-biggest bank in Europe and Britain after HSBC.
ABN Amro also said this morning that its first-quarter net profit rose 30.6% to €1.31 billion.
Fortis is the Dutch-Belgian bank which has formed a joint venture with An Post in Ireland.
