Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Ross McEwan has suggested the bank could buy back its own shares from the UK Government.

The New Zealand born banker told a major financial conference in London the view was a personal opinion and not one which was necessarily shared by the RBS board.

The bank has already stated it would try to make some return to shareholders if its tier-one capital ratio, a measure of a bank’s financial strength, is above 13 per cent.

However Mr McEwan said he expects RBS to face a further stress test next year and the bank would need to pass that before it could seriously look at dividends or share buybacks.

Asked about the possibility of RBS returning excess capital Mr McEwan told the audience at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Banking & Insurance conference he had not changed his view that the first quarter of 2017 was the earliest that is likely to happen.

He said: “We have to get ourselves into a position where the PRA is comfortable with us returning money through any of those forms back to our shareholders.

“My own personal view, this isn’t agreed with board, [is] I would rather participate as the government is selling down in the buybacks, be part of that exercise.

“At some stage we would like to put a dividend policy in place but I would like to actually participate, I think it is the best thing for all investors where excess capital goes back through buyback.”

The UK Government still has a 73 per cent stake in RBS but made its first share sale, at a loss of around £1bn, earlier this year.