RBS has appointed Goldman Sachs to manage the sale of its Coutts International business.

Royal Bank of Scotland's disposal of Coutts International has taken another big step this week after this publication was able to confirm earlier unsourced media reports that Goldman Sachs has been hired to advise on the move.

The news follows recent media reports that Zurich-listed Julius Baer is interested in buying Coutts International, but does not intend to enter a bidding war to purchase the overseas wealth arm of Royal Bank of Scotland.

“Coutts has to be an issue for us, if only because of the name and the brand," Julius Baer's chief executive Boris Collardi reportedly told Sonntagsblick, the Swiss publication, in an interview.

RBS, still majority-owned by the UK government, is currently considering the shape of its private banking business.

In an internal memo seen by this publication last month, the bank said it was thinking of selling the international arm of Coutts as it intensifies its focus on the domestic market.

Already one firm whose name has been mentioned as a potential suitor for the Swiss part of Coutts is Banque Syz.

The Swiss publication quoted Julius Baer's Collardi as saying that there had been no talks with RBS on the matter. He said his firm would not enter a bidding auction for Coutts International.

Over the past 12 months, Julius Baer has been transferring assets from the wealth management businesses it has acquired from Bank of America Merrill Lynch's non-US operations. That particular M&A deal has been one of the largest such transactions in the industry.

Ever since RBS was bailed out by the then-Labour UK government during the financial crisis over five years ago, there has been speculation over the future of Coutts as part of the RBS stable.

The international arm has clients in Asia, the Middle East and Europe, with offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Dubai, Geneva, Zurich and Monaco.