Postal Savings Bank of China, one of the country's largest banks by assets, is gearing up for a possible initial public offering (IPO) that could raise as much as US$25 billion, the same amount that Chinese e-commerce giant raised in its New York listing.

Analysts said Postal Savings Bank, the world's biggest bank by branches, could raise between US$1 billion and US$25 billion in an IPO, depending on how much the price of each share will be valued in the public offering.

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To prepare for the mammoth listing in early 2016, the bank is in talks with potential investors about selling minority stake. Among those interested are an affiliate of Alibaba, several US private equity groups and Asian sovereign wealth funds.

The bank, which is the lending arm of China post Group Co, is taking in overseas investors following Chinese President Xi Jinping's move to introduce more market discipline to state-owned enterprises.

The state-owned bank also needs to get the go signal from China's State Council and the Ministry of Finance before it can proceed with the plan to go public.

The bank, established in 2007, has close to 40,000 branches all over China and over 470 million retail customers.

Postal Savings Bank of China is a commercial retail bank that provides basic financial services, especially to small and medium enterprises, rural and low income customers.

The bank was set up with an initial capital of 20 billion Chinese yuan in 2007 from the State Post Bureau. Today it has 1.5 billion yuan in deposits and 5.57 trillion yuan (US$891 billion) of assets at the end of 2013, making it the country's sixth largest lender.

It was still not known where the bank will list but analysts said a Hong Kong listing is not impossible.

TagsPostal Savings Bank of China, China IPO