China's banking regulator had approved the sale of a 4.55 percent stake in China Minsheng Banking Corp. to a unit of Singapore’s Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd., the country’s leading financial newspapers reported Monday.

The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) recently approved the plan by Temasek’s Asia Financial Holdings to buy the stake in Minsheng Bank, the Beijing-based China Securities Journal reported.

Minsheng Bank, also based in the capital city, made no public announcement. However, it said last month its board had approved the stake purchase.

A Temasek spokesman said his company could not comment because it required further approvals before the deal was finalized.

A nod from the State-owned Assets Supervision Administration Commission would lift the last hurdle for the transaction, the papers said.

Minsheng Bank, founded in 1996 and listed in Shanghai in 2000, was the Chinese mainland’s first homegrown lender with private shareholders and is generally considered among the country’s strongest banks.

In October, its board approved the sale of more than 236 million legal person shares from China National Coal Group Corp. to the Singaporean company.

Legal person shares are a form of non-tradable equity used in China to allow approved State-owned companies and agencies to take a stake in listed and privately held companies so the government can maintain arm’s length control over management.

The bank said the purchase price was better than they had expected but declining to disclose the figure.

Should the deal go ahead it would raise Mingsheng Bank’s profile as it vies with larger State-owned rivals such as Bank of China and China Construction Bank to be the first mainland bank to list its entire operations overseas.

Minsheng Bank is known to want to launch an initial public offering of shares in Hong Kong and has been reported to be in talks with foreign banks and financial institutions looking for a foothold in China.