The Royal Bank of Scotland-led consortium vying to buy ABN Amro cleared an important hurdle yesterday when RBS shareholders overwhelmingly backed its bid for the Dutch lender.

The trio of banks, which includes Santander of Spain and Belgo-Dutch Fortis, has offered €71.1 billion for ABN and now has backing from all its shareholders.

The mainly cash bid is competing against a €65 billion cash-and-shares offer from Barclays, the UK bank.

Shares in Barclays yesterday fell 6.4 per cent to 638p amid market speculation the bank might consider walking away. However, it is understood Barclays has no intention of doing so.

ABN shares fell 11 per cent at one point before recovering to close 3.5 per cent lower at €33.85.

Sir Fred Goodwin, chief executive of RBS, yesterday shrugged off problems in the global credit markets. He said even if market turmoil were to worsen, given the quality of the three institutions involved in the bid "there'd be much wider problems in this market for people to worry about than this transaction".

He sidestepped questions about whether the consortium might consider restructuring its bid - which is 93 per cent in cash - if markets were to fall dramatically. - (Financial Times service)