RBS chief executive Ross McEwan said: "We have been very clear that we wanted to deal with as many of our legacy litigation issues as possible during 2015 and 2016. "We are pleased to have reached this agreement and hope that it will be accepted by the remaining claimant groups so that this long course of complex and costly litigation can now be concluded." Since its bailout by the government in 2008, RBS has continued to struggle. It reported a loss of £1.98bn for 2015, its eighth consecutive year of annual losses. Last week, stress tests run by the Bank of England found that RBS was the worst prepared of the UK's biggest lenders to cope with another financial crisis. The results forced RBS to devise plans to bolster its balance sheet by £2bn through cost cuts and shedding assets.