Softly spoken opera lover and horse-rider who defended Sir Fred to the hilt in face of storm of criticism

Given his lofty position, inevitably he must bear some responsibility for the disastrous sequence of events that led to RBS's multi-billion pound taxpayer bail-out.

But in his previous roles, he would not have had sight of the bank's global losses nor would he have been directly involved in the 71 billion takeover of part of ABN Amro, a deal that came at the top of the market, just before the credit crunch. Before he was made deputy group chief executive, he was in charge of retail banking.

"He didn't really have much to do with ABN Amro but, as a member of the board, perhaps he should have stood up to what was happening," one banking insider said. "He was very much more engaged in the retail side of things."

Despite its huge losses from investment banking, RBS's retail bank was run relatively prudently under Mr Pell and maintained a small share of the mortgage market.

However, as retail banking chief executive, he was involved in the acquisition of the Prime Bank in Pakistan, a deal begun by ABN. Since then, RBS's Pakistan business has fallen in value and RBS has said it is no longer "core" to its business. It hopes to divest operations there.

A far more passive character than Sir Fred, Mr Pell 60, was known as a banker who loved to rush away from the office to go to the opera. Opera is one of the recreations he lists in his Who's Who entry, along with riding.

Last year, he courted controversy when he defended Sir Fred, hailing his former boss's "skills and strengths" when he appeared before MPs on the Scottish affairs select committee.

He told them: "If you Google his name, you will find over 40 pages – and 25 recognise his skills and strengths and the major contribution he made to Scotland. Just to bury him is somewhat premature. There will be a more rational assessment of Sir Fred once the dust has settled."

A softly spoken Englishman, Mr Pell was educated at Wellington College and Southampton University.

Before he joined RBS, he was a group director of retail banking at Lloyds TSB. He then went to National Westminster Bank as a director before rising to chief executive of retail banking. He became RBS's retail banking chief executive when the Scottish bank took over NatWest in 2000.

He was appointed chairman of the Business Commission on Racial Equality in the Workplace in July 2006 and deputy chairman of the British Bankers Association in September 2007.

He is also a director of Race for Opportunity and a member of the FSA Practitioner Panel, which provides input to the Financial Services Authority to help it meet good regulation.

He should be well aware of the public anger triggered by RBS's decline and by the massive pay-outs enjoyed by its executives.

Mr Pell was one of the executives to attend the annual meeting last year, when extra seats had to be brought in to accommodate the 532 people who attended.

One of the angry shareholders called for Mr Pell and his colleagues to be "out by teatime".

As he faced the wrath of investors, there was applause when someone in the hall suggested the bank's leaders should be "in jail".

In the past, Mr Pell has acknowledged the uproar over Sir Fred's 16.6m pension has sapped staff morale.

"I don't want them to have to spend the first three pages of every newspaper reading about Fred's pension and then what we're actually doing positively comes in on page four," he said back then.

Now it is his own pension that is causing the uproar.