Royal Bank of Scotland is planning to use more than €20bn ($27.2bn) worth of shares to fund its bid for Dutch bank ABN Amro, while its consortium partners Fortis of Belgium and Santander of Spain are expected to launch rights issues or sell non-core assets to meet their share of the deal.

The three banks, which outlined the broad terms of their indicative takeover of ABN Amro yesterday morning in a bid to beat a rival agreed deal tabled by Barclays, are planning to use cash to fund 70% of their offer of €39 a share, which would rank as the world's biggest banking takeover.