Intesa Sanpaolo is “looking at” the Polish unit of Allied Irish Bank, the Italian bank’s chief executive Corrado Passera told reporters in Venice yesterday, according to a report by Bloomberg.

Intesa Sanpaolo is the largest banking group in Italy and has a market capitalisation of €27.3 billion.

It has more than 5,900 branches in Italy and about 11.3 million customers.

AIB has a 70 per cent stake in Polish lender BZ WBK which it has put up for sale as part of its efforts to raise €7.4 billion to meet the Financial Regulator’s new capital requirements by the end of this year.