Shareholders in RBS today asked chairman Sir Tom McKillop to stand aside at the bank's annual general meeting to allow embattled chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin to stand up and defend his decision to launch a rights issue after months of claiming there was sufficient capital to plug a hole left by the acquisition of ABN Amro.

During shareholders' question time at the meeting in Edinburgh, Goodwin was forced to explain why he and the board had decided to launch the £12bn (€15bn) rights issue despite it stating in February “there are no plans for any inorganic capital raisings or anything of the sort.”