Barclays' move comes amid rising tension over bonus payments at the part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland. RBS's board has threatened to resign en masse if the Government vetos plans to pay the lender's 20,000 investment bankers hundreds of millions of pounds in bonuses. The Treasury secured a veto as part of the state's latest rescue of the bank, taking the taxpayer's potential investment in RBS to £53.5bn and giving the state an 84pc stake.