Royal Bank of Scotland has awarded millions of potentially lucrative share options to top executives under a controversial new bonus plan opposed by a hefty minority of shareholders.

Chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin, head of corporate markets Johnny Cameron, and Larry Fish, head of US subsidiary Citizens, are among the major beneficiaries.

At the bank's annual meeting in April, more than 22% of shareholders voted against the 2007 executive share option plan, which has been introduced to replace a scheme approved by shareholders in 1999. The scheme could see executives including Goodwin gain three times their basic salary - which in his case would amount to £3.6m.

The scheme was criticised by corporate governance adviser PIRC, which questioned an alleged lack of disclosure on the scheme's performance targets, which RBS said would have a direct link to share performance.

RBS announced to the stock market yesterday that it had granted options to 15 senior executives which will vest between 2010 and 2017 at an exercise price of 561p, a level which some might view as low by recent standards. RBS shares closed up 1.5p at 577p last night, but were until recently trading well above £6.

One of the biggest beneficiaries was Goodwin, who was granted options over nearly 700,000 shares. Cameron was granted options over 374,332 shares and Fish over 523,640 shares. Finance director Guy Whittaker and retail markets chief Gordon Pell also received big awards.

RBS did not respond to a request for comment on how it had arrived at the apparently low exercise price.

Speaking at the annual meeting, remuneration committee chairman Bob Scott had stressed that the new shares policy was designed to "attract, motivate and retain high-calibre executives", and insisted the rules had been crafted to meet current best practice.