The status of the talks between NBNK Investments and National Australia Bank over an assumed takeover bid by NBNK of the British banking assets of the latter are ambiguous this morning, though NBNK took the step last night of having trading in its shares suspended on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market.NBNK said in a statement through AIM that "in view of the size of the operations NBNK is seeking to acquire… and the level of on-going press speculation concerning possible acquisitions, trading in the company's shares will now be suspended until… an acquisition or the talks otherwise conclude."Based on the initial reports by the UK's Daily Telegraph and Financial Times newspapers, and Sky News on Monday, UK time, and a plethora of follow up reports on Tuesday (including by the Wall Street Journal, Reuters and others), the talks between NBNK and NAB must have progressed much further than the oft-reported tyre-kicking between the two over recent months.Those talks relate to the opportunities created by the sale by Lloyds Bank of some of its retail banking assets and the sale by the UK Treasury of the nationalised Northern Rock. NBNK is an investment vehicle established to buy one or more of these banking businesses.According to reports overnight in the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, NBNK either expects to secure, or has secured, commitments for £8 billion in funding to fulfil its business vision.According to the Australian Financial Review, NAB confirmed it would "consider opportunities for its UK operations but denied it had immediate plans for a sell-off or joint venture with any syndicates seeking to buy distressed assets."Clydesdale Bank, NAB's chief entity in the UK, had net assets of £2.7 billion at March 2011.NAB has had to repeatedly top up the share capital of Clydesdale Bank since the global financial crisis engulfed Britain's banking industry in 2008.At September 2008, the share capital of Clydesdale was £232 million. At March 2011, it was $1.14 billion, an increase of £910 million over two-and-a-half years. NAB kicked in £200 million in the March 2011 half alone.About half of the extra capital relates to losses recognised in the pension plan for NAB staff in the UK in 2009.Over the period since the financial crisis, the balance sheet of Clydesdale has been essentially static, with losses as common as profits.Clydesdale reported a profit of £34 million in the year to September 2010 and a return on equity of 1.4 per cent. The return on assets was 0.3 per cent.In the March 2011 half, Clydesdale reported a loss of £43 million.