MARK Fisher, a former chief lieutenant to Fred Goodwin at RBS and operations director at Lloyds since 2009, is stepping down from the banking frontline.

The 53-year-old Yorkshireman will become a non-executive director at TSB, his reputation untarnished despite having held some of the most critical roles in UK banking for the past 14 years.

Mr Fisher's last big assignment was the Project Verde spin-off of TSB, and he chaired Lloyds TSB Scotland until its absorption into the independent entity which is due to list on the Stock Exchange in June.

Seen at various times as a potential successor to Mr Goodwin at RBS and then to Eric Daniels at Lloyds, Mr Fisher made his mark at NatWest which he joined as a maths graduate trainee in 1981, rising to become operations director.

When NatWest was acquired by RBS, Mr Fisher was handed the key job of integrating the two banks, cutting 18,000 jobs and managing £4billion more in savings than had been targeted.

His status as Mr Goodwin's right-hand man was underlined when he was asked to oversee the creation of the new RBS headquarters at Gogarburn.

In February 2006 Mr Fisher was elevated to the RBS board as an executive director, along with corporate banking chief Johnny Cameron who was later to fall from grace along with Mr Goodwin.

In October 2007 the bank's 'chief executive of manufacturing' was given the job of integrating ABN Amro after the controversial £49billion merger, cutting 19,000 jobs and saving £2.8billion over three years.

But in November 2008, less than a month after Mr Goodwin was ousted, the £2.36million a year Mr Fisher jumped ship to Lloyds TSB with a £460,000 golden handshake.

As head of IT and operations his main task was the integration of the collapsed HBoS into Lloyds.

In his five years there he has overseen the shedding of thousands of Lloyds jobs cuts and been responsible for the PPI clean-up operation, for which Lloyds has now provided £10billion.