Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile operator, has broken off talks with MTN, the South African telecoms group, dashing hopes for a deal that sought to forge one of the world’s biggest emerging market telecoms alliances.

Bharti on Saturday blamed differences over the structure of the proposed deal rather than funding for the collapse of the talks. The company confirmed it had received ”confident” letters from US and European banks pledging $60bn of funding for a deal worth as much as $44bn.