ROYAL Bank of Scotland has admitted it made a mistake when calculating its readiness to meet a stress test set by the European Banking Authority.

The bank said it had made errors around recognising certain tax credits.

As a result its common equity tier one (CET1) ratio, a measure of a bank's financial strength, under the correct model for an adverse scenario was 5.7 per cent. That was down from the 6.7 per cent that was originally published but still ahead of the 5.5 per cent minimum that was set by the ECB.

RBS pointed out its actual CET1 ratio was at 10.8 per cent at September 30 this year, up from 8.6 per cent at the end of December 2013.

Following the announcement shares in RBS fell and the stock closed down 2.9p, or 0.76 per cent, to 377.7p.