The news comes after the Slovenia Sovereign Holding (SSH) in December urged the bidders to raise their offers for the bank, which was bailed out and nationalised in December 2013.

Last October the bank failed an ECB stress test after it was found that it could have a capital gap of EUR 31m under the adverse scenario, but it was not requested to take any immediate action since it will cover the shortfall with profit.

The bank has not yet released full-year results for 2014 but it reported a January-September group net profit of EUR 26.4m compared to a EUR 67m loss in the same period the year before.

NKBM was supposed to be privatised by the end of 2014 according to state aid commitments given to the EU, but the procedure dragged out, reportedly because the bids were considered too low.