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The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) confirmed it has sold 95.11 per cent of the shares offered in its rights issue and is thought to have raised £12 billion.

A total of 5,823,635,440 shares were sold by the bank according to an official release, which announced it was to seek the capital investment on April 22nd.

As the offer closed at 11:00 on Friday the vast majority of the shares offered had received valid acceptances, with shareholders allowed to purchase 11 new shares for every for 18 owned.

In accordance with the arrangements of the rights issue prospectus, released by RBS on April 30th, the underwriters will be seeking subscribers for the remaining 299,375,022 new RBS ordinary shares, for which valid acceptances were not received.

The bank is thought to have raised £12 billion through the rights issue – which is the largest in UK corporate history.

There are 200,000 RBS shareholders at present, with 93 per cent of the company owned by major investors, with the other seven per cent owned by private individuals.

HBOS and Bradford & Bingley have also been forced to go to investors for additional cash, although the demands were smaller in both cases, with the lenders seeking £4 billion and £250 million respectively.

Bradford & Bingley, however, caused controversy last week as the bank recalibrated the rights issue offering, following investment from American firm Texas Pacific Group (TPG).

Banks have been forced to shore up balance sheets during the global liquidity crisis, stemming from the American subprime housing market.

With banks unsure which face liabilities from the crisis, they have been increasingly reticent to lend to each other, forcing up the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor).

This has made wholesale funding increasingly expensive, and forced banks to turn to shareholders in order to raise funds.

Shares in RBS were trading at 243.50 pence per share this morning, following steep falls since the announcement of the rights issue.