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By Pamela Barbaglia
LONDON, July 24 (Reuters) - Barclays Plc is inexclusive talks to sell its retail banking business in Portugalto Spain's Bankinter, a person familiar with the mattersaid on Friday.
Two sources said Barclays had accelerated the sale of itsretail businesses in Portugal and Italy as the British banktries to speed up its turnaround plan under new Chairman JohnMcFarlane.
The sources said the talks to sell in Portugal, whereBarclays has 85 branches, were more advanced than talks to sellin Italy, where it has 90 branches and has started talks withinterested parties.
Both businesses, as well as operations in France, are partof Barclays' portfolio of 'non-core' businesses and assets itwants to sell or run down.
The Portuguese sale is likely to include its retail andcorporate banking business, but exclude Barclays' investmentbanking and credit card operations in the country, one of thesources said.
McFarlane - who fired Chief Executive Antony Jenkins thismonth - has said he wants to speed up an improvement inBarclays' performance, which includes getting rid of theloss-making European retail banking operations.
Barclays sold its retail and corporate banking and wealthmanagement business in Spain to CaixaBank for about800 million euros ($876 million) in September. The British bankmade a loss after tax on the sale of about 500 million pounds.
The Portuguese business is expected to be sold at less thanthe price Barclays holds its assets at, one of the sources said.
Portugal's banking sector is in a state of flux asauthorities try to sell Novo Banco, the third-largest bank interms of assets, which was born out of last year's state rescueof Banco Espirito Santo.
Bankinter CEO Maria Dolores Dancausa said after results on Thursday the Spanish bank was "more a buyer than a seller" whenasked if it was an acquisition target.($1 = 0.9130 euros) (Additional reporting by Steve Slater and Sarah White; Editingby Alexander Smith)
Barclays (BARC)