The report did not give financial details of the talks.

The companies did not respond immediately to a request for comment on Saturday.

Co-op Bank has struggled to turn around its performance after its near-collapse and rescue by a consortium of U.S. hedge funds in 2017.

For 2018, the lender's adjusted loss before tax increased to 140.7 million pounds from 140.3 million pounds in 2017.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)