China's Postal Savings Bank, the nation's biggest lender by number of branches, may file for a Hong Kong IPO worth up to $8 billion next week, people close to the deal said.
The IPO is expected to be the world's biggest listing this year.
The offering has come down in size from an up to $15 billion mooted in December due to a slide in Hong Kong stocks.
But it is expected to draw much investor interest by virtue of its huge customer base and as it is considered to have a much lower ratio of bad loans than rivals.
Postal Savings Bank of China is the last of China's major state-owned banks to list.
It saw big name investors such as Alibaba's Ant Financial unit and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board invest in a fund-raising round late last year that valued it at about $41 billion.
The bank is still waiting for some final approvals before deciding on the exact day of the filing, sources said.
The listing could raise between $7 billion and $8 billion, they said, surpassing by far the biggest IPO so far in 2016, a $2.6 billion deal from Danish utility DONG Energy.
PSBC has about 500 million clients or nearly half of China's population.
The deal would also give a much needed boost to IPO activity in Hong Kong.
In common with other major financial centres it has seen new listings decline amid concerns over the US Federal Reserve raising interest rates, a slowdown in China and the possibility of Britons voting in favour of leaving the European Union next week.
While most large Chinese banks including Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Agricultural Bank of China trade at prices below their book value, PSBC plans to sell shares close to book value, the sources added.
PSBC, which has more than 40,000 branches nationwide, was set up as a deposit-taking bank in 2007, using the network of the former postal savings bureau.
