If Sir Fred Goodwin had hoped the publication of a full set of audited results would help ease the stock market's concerns about Royal Bank of Scotland's performance, he will have been disappointed.

Even though the bank reported an 8 per cent rise in profits to £9.9bn ($19.7bn), increased the planned cost savings from its acquisition of ABN Amro and raised its full-year dividend by 10 per cent, the initial conclusion from most analysts was that RBS's figures were far from reassuring.