The newly appointed group finance director of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has resigned after just ten weeks in the job and is to join Spanish-owned bank Santander.

Nathan Bostock, who started the top finance job at RBS on 1 October, is set to become deputy chief executive of Santander UK.

RBS confirmed Bostock had informed the group board of 'his intention to resign' from the role.

The statement said: 'His formal resignation is expected soon, but he will remain in his position to oversee an orderly handover of his responsibilities.' Bostock is believed to have a 12 month contract with the troubled bank, which also lost chief executive Stephen Hester in the summer.

State-backed RBS is currently creating an internal 'bad bank' to house £38bn of its riskiest assets. As the bank's former head of restructuring and risk, Bostock was expected to be an integral part of that process.