Acting as the financial adviser in the deal is PwC Management Consultants, which will provide information to potential investors.

NLB also said in a written statement announcing the sale that the bank was, however, not obliged to conclude deals with potential bidders as part of the process.

The announcement comes as part of ongoing restructuring at Slovenia's biggest bank, focusing on cost-cutting, divestment of non-strategic assets and boosting revenues.

As of the first quarter of 2015, 15 of the 23 projects have reportedly been completed.

After the bank transferred non-performing claims with a nominal value of EUR 2.278bn to the Bank Asset Management Company (BAMC) in 2013, it has been dealing with the remaining toxic loans, which accounted for EUR 2.6bn gross or 25.6% of the total loan portfolio in the first quarter of 2015.

Another issue has been the inability to transfer toxic assets by its foreign subsidiaries to BAMC.

NLB reported a group net profit of EUR 25m for the first quarter of the year, down 13% year-on-year.

The Ljubljana-based bank cleared around EUR 100m of bad loans from its books in the first half of the year, saying that the pace of the clean-up would increase in the second half.