National Australia Bank, which owns UK’s Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks, has announced that it is considering selling the UK businesses, possibly through a stock market flotation. NAB said its clear focus is on Australian and New Zealand franchises and providing a greater customer experience and as a result it needs greater urgency dealing to the remaining low-returning assets. In relation to exiting UK banking this means the bank is now examining a broader range of options including those provided by public markets. The UK businesses have been eating into the profits of the Melbourne-based bank which bought Clydesdale in 1987 and Yorkshire in 1990. Like many other UK banks, Clydesdale and Yorkshire have become embroiled in misselling scandals such as payment protection and interest rate swap misselling and earlier this month the bills for compensating customers forced NAB to warn that its profits would be lower than expected. NAB revealed a £420 million provision for PPI and £250 million for interest rate swap mis-selling for Clydesdale and Yorkshire. The UK arms of the Australian banks employ around 7,100 people in the UK