British bank Barclays has held talks with Italy's UniCredito as merger speculation in the Italian banking sector intensifies, the Wall Street Journal Europereported today.
The paper reported that Barclays chief executive John Varley met his UniCredito counterpart Alessandro Profumo recently.
The talks were "a courtesy call", the paper said, citing the same source and giving no further details.
Both Barclays and UniCredito, Italy's largest bank by market value, declined to comment on the report.
Last week, Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Oresaid a leading international investment bank was working on the idea of Barclays buying UniCredito but there was no actual working project on the idea.
At the time, UniCredito executives said the idea of a merger between the two banks was "pretty unbelievable".
UniCredito also denied as groundless a statement in last week's Il Solereport that it could merge with Banca Intesa, Italy's largest bank by assets.
Barclays, one of Britain's five largest commercial lenders, is in talks to buy South African bank Absa.
Italian banks have become the focus of intense merger speculation since Spain's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria made a bid to buy Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Italy's number six bank by assets, and Dutch bank ABN AMRO followed with an offer for Banca Antonveneta.