Bank of Queensland yesterday confirmed it would undertake a strategic review; that it has hired investment bank O'Sullivan Partners to help undertake the task and said it set six months for the project, which it dubbed "Project Pathway".The object of the review seems to be to find a buyer for the bank - the key phrase is a reference to "strategic partnerships" - rather than messing around trying to buy reluctant, mutually-owned credit unions that don't add much scale, though that remains an option.The media release published through the ASX yesterday also talks about "complementary merger opportunities and new business strategies such as portfolio optimisation and efficiency initiatives".BOQ has already sold its ATM fleet and credit card portfolio. It could perhaps sell its commercial lending arm (the source of most of its relatively modest impaired assets) and equipment finance business it bought from UFJ four years ago. That would leave only credit union style deposit gathering and consumer lending, which isn't much of a business mix.Among the "organic" growth options listed in a presentation to the annual meeting yesterday there was no mention of investment in interstate expansion, or any acknowledgement of BOQ's patchy record in New South Wales and also Western Australia in recent years on that front.If showered in cash from equity investors, which seems unlikely, BOQ could try and buy Suncorp's banking business and then try yet again to expand in a serious fashion outside Queensland.There's a chance this is what BOQ's management has in mind. For example, the bank's managing director, David Liddy, told The Age, "I see us as being able to fill the void of the regional banks that have been lost in Australia."Liddy told the Courier Mail he wants BOQ to enter the wealth management business.Maybe the BOQ board, like the St George board, has a more sober assessment of the options.If BOQ is a seller rather than a buyer, that leaves the question of selling to whom.Bendigo and Adelaide Bank is the obvious option, and this time around it may be that Bendigo is in a much stronger negotiating position over a merger than when BOQ opted for a hostile, and easily rebuffed, bid in early 2007. (Bendigo Bank, as it then was, ultimately merged with Adelaide Bank.)Any strategic options that include the French regional bank BRED Banque Populaire that popped up on the BOQ (and also the Bendigo) share register early this year seems an improbable option, on the assumption that the global financial stress is forcing a reconsideration by BRED of these investments.A grand unification of sub-scale deposit-taking entities might be another option, and, while riddled with complex industry politics, is not a bad idea. Though apart from offering to project itself into the mix, BOQ seems an unlikely candidate to supply the leadership on such a plan.Other candidates for any strategic partnership may be more obscure.Or maybe BOQ can take the National Australia Bank money and run.