July 31 (Bloomberg) -- Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. may announce the purchase of Royal Bank of Scotland Plc’s Taiwanese banking assets as early as next week, Dow Jones newswires reported, without saying where it got the information.

The Taiwan unit will be the first of several retail and commercial banking assets in Asia sold by RBS, Dow Jones said in a report carried in The Australian newspaper.

“Discussions with RBS are continuing on selected Asian assets, and they’re progressing well,” Paul Edwards, a spokesman for Melbourne-based ANZ told Bloomberg News, declining to comment specifically about RBS’s Taiwan operations.

ANZ earlier this month sold A$2.2 billion ($1.8 billion) of stock to shareholders, more than six times the amount the lender announced in May, as it bids for RBS’s Asian units.

ANZ may buy RBS’s units in at least five Asian countries as Britain’s biggest government-controlled bank splits its assets in the region to attract buyers, three people familiar with the plan said this month. ANZ is in advanced negotiations to acquire RBS’s retail and commercial-banking units in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia, the people said.

RBS is seeking to trim its operations in 36 countries that make up two-thirds of its international business after posting the biggest loss in British corporate history last year.

Edinburgh-based RBS has commercial banking assets in Taiwan as well as assets through the acquisition of ABN Amro Holding NV.

ANZ shares climbed 2.4 percent to A$18.17 in Sydney as of 10:43 a.m., while the S&P/ASX 200 Index advanced 0.7 percent.

To contact the reporter on this story: Andreea Papuc in Hong Kong at apapuc1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 30, 2009 20:44 EDT