Royal Bank of Scotland, which owns Coutts, the UK private bank, has confirmed it is considering a rights issue to strengthen its finances. However, RBS, which was part of a consortium of banks that bought the Dutch bank ABN Amro at the height of last year's mergers and acquisitions boom, declined to state how much capital it might seek to raise. RBS said it was considering taking the step, according to a statement issued to the London Stock Exchange. It added it will make a further announcement "in due course". Last week, media outlets reported that RBS was considering raising up to £12 billion, a move that is considered to be an embarrassing U-turn for its chief executive, Sir Fred Goodwin, who has repeatedly ruled out the idea in the past. Some news organisations have suggested the bank could launch the rights issue as early as this week. If RBS takes the step, it will join a number of banks, including Societe Generale in France and Switzerland's UBS, which have tapped equity markets for capital to replenish capital reserves. Analysts at Morgan Stanley argued in a report last week that the shares of banks taking this step for the explicit purpose of repairing finances will outperform the broader market in the medium term.