LONDON (AP) — Shareholders in Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC gave approval yesterday for the biggest stock rights issue in British corporate history — almost $24 billion — as another British mortgage lender announced plans of its own for a rights issue.

RBS said that a 95-percent majority voted in favour of authorising the bank to issue £12 billion ($23.9 billion) in stock to bolster its finances after hits from its exposure to the US sub-prime mortgage crisis and last year's costly buyout of Dutch bank ABN Amro.

The shareholders also approved the payment of a scrip dividend — a dividend in shares — for the first half of 2008. This second resolution was approved by a 96-percent majority.

"Our view is that the world has changed," RBS chairman Tom McKillop told investors at a meeting in Edinburgh.

"The further deterioration we have seen in credit markets this year; the examples of quite extreme stress we have seen in some of our financial counterparties; the worsening of the economic outlook — all these factors have brought us to the conclusion that we needed to carry more capital in our business than we have chosen to do in recent years, when the economic environment was more stable," he added.

The increasing toll on lenders was underlined yesterday by an announcement from mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley PLC that it will ask shareholders for £300 million ($582.3 million) in a bid to bolster its balance sheet.

Bradford & Bingley, which just a month ago said it had no plans to ask investors for more cash, became the third bank to seek extra funds after HBOS PLC, the parent company of mortgage lender Halifax, announced plans for a £4 billion ($7.95 billion) rights issue.

Worldwide, Citigroup, UBS AG, Merrill Lynch & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have all turned to investors for more capital.