Royal Bank of Scotland on Thursday poured cold water on concerns that Sir Philip Hampton’s new independent directorship at Anglo-American, the miner, would interfere with his chairmanship of the embattled banking group.

Sources close to the Edinburgh-based bank also dismissed several calls from investors for RBS to cut Sir Philip’s £750,000 a year pay packet and £1.5 million options package in the light of his potentially reduced commitments to the bank.

One senior RBS source said: “If anything, Sir Philip will have more time to dedicate to RBS. Earlier this year he had three directorships, two of them as chairman. He is simply replacing one non-executive role with another.”

It emerged yesterday that Sir Philip, whose arrival at Anglo-American was confirmed on Monday, will be expected to work for the mining group for 25 days each year. He will attend six board meetings annually, with one of them usually held in South Africa. He is likely to be paid between £65,000 and £80,000 a year, in line with other non-executives at the miner.

Sir Philip stood down from the board at J Sainsbury, the supermarket group, in October. In March he will resign as an independent director at Belgacom, the Belgian telecoms group.

“This is not what we signed up for,” one institutional shareholder in RBS said yesterday. “We signed off his rather generous remuneration package on the understanding that his position at the bank would be a full-time one.”

Another investor said he expected RBS “at least to have considered” whether to cut Sir Philip’s remuneration, currently among the highest for a UK company chairman.

It is understood that UK Financial Investments, which manages the Government’s stakes in banks, was consulted about Sir Philip’s position at Anglo and was not concerned. RBS is 84 per cent owned by the taxpayer. It is understood that Sir Philip’s contract commits him to a three-day working week, although he currently works for longer.

RBS and Anglo both said yesterday that they were “completely comfortable” that Sir Philip could carry out both roles effectively.

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