US money goes behind Virgin

Mr Ross said he has also invested 100m ($152m) in Virgin Money. He teamed up with Virgin in 2007 when it attempted to buy lender Northern Rock.

Virgin Money is the consumer credit arm of entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Group and has been named as a potential suitor for some of the British banking assets due to come on the market.

Mr Ross' interest was reported in yesterday's Yorkshire Post and he has since said: "The UK banking system is clearly going to go through a big overhaul. There will equally clearly be some new winners and some new losers.

"We think that, given the management team and the reputation that Virgin Money has built up, they are ideally positioned to be one of the big winners.".

Mr Ross said his support was intended to help "if they're fortunate enough" to win the bidding for the RBS branch network.

RBS was bailed out by UK taxpayers at the height of the financial crisis and European Union regulators have ordered it to sell assets, including more than 300 branches, to compensate for billions received in state aid.