Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS.LN) Wednesday said Pakistan's central bank has allowed MCB Bank (MCB.KA) and Habib Bank (HBL.KA) to begin due diligence on its operations in the country.

Last week, Habib Bank Ltd. and MCB Bank separately said they are interested in buying Royal Bank of Scotland's business in Pakistan, called Royal Bank of Scotland Ltd. (RBS.KA).

Royal Bank of Scotland had in February announced a three- to five-year plan to dispose of non-core assets. It had identified its Asia assets as well as a number of businesses related to the unprofitable global banking and markets unit for sale.

-By Haris Zamir, contributing to Dow Jones Newswires; 91-11-4356-3311; neelabh.chaturvedi@dowjones.com