Thorburn is keeping his powder dry over Lloyds branch sell-off

Speaking for the first time since taking over the top job at the beginning of this month, he declined to elaborate on speculation linking Clydesdale with the 632 branches Lloyds Banking Group is being forced to offload.

Clydesdale's parent group, National Australia Bank, is understood to be among those interested in acquiring the Lloyds' assets. Others include Virgin Money and Lord Levene's NBNK acquisition vehicle.

Buying the branches would transform the Melbourne-based group's British interests and confirm its commitment to the UK where it also owns the Yorkshire Bank.

Analysts have long questioned NAB's interest in remaining in Britain, particularly after it sold Northern Bank and National Irish.

However, it has been regarded as a good fit with the branches that Lloyds must sell as a condition for receiving state aid. The buyer will acquire assets and a market share that alone would be equal to the seventh biggest bank in Britain.

Speaking to The Scotsman yesterday, Thorburn said Clydesdale was gaining ground on its rivals but he admitted that its current scale meant that it would need to differentiate itself. "The fact of the matter is that as a medium-sized player you need to be different. You cannot use scale or the cheapest price," he said.

The banking crisis had left the sector polarised between the big five and the building societies, he said. "We sit in between these two. We are not a big bank, nor a building society. The key for us is to preserve that distinctiveness."

He believes that being smaller also had advantages in bringing it closer to the customer and said it also had a flatter management which meant there were fewer tiers for customers to confront.

He rejected suggestions that these attributes may be lost if the bank were to acquire the Lloyds branches which would mean adding a portfolio almost twice the size of its current UK stock of 339 outlets.

Thorburn said the bank was in good shape but he would be working on improving its return on equity by driving up business volumes and controlling costs. The cost-income ratio at the half-way stage showed a rise from 57.2 per cent to 59 per cent. "There are things we need to work on, but it is a long game," he admitted.

His arrival in a job once held by Sir Fred Goodwin before his move to Royal Bank of Scotland, marks the culmination of a career that began as a graduate trainee in 1978.He has spent his entire career north of the Border and is now the only Scot running one of the big banks in Scotland.

He has been a board director of Clydesdale since 2002, when he was appointed chief operating officer. Two years later he assumed a similar role with Yorkshire bank and in 2008 joined the board of National Australia Group Europe.

He undertook management training at Harvard Graduate Business School and among his other roles he is a past chairman of CBI Scotland and former president of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland.

He admits that the banking climate for small firms has not been easy but insists Clydesdale is taking market share. The bank says it is on course to overshoot its two-year pledge to lend 10 billion to businesses by October.

He does not expect a double dip recession north of the Border.

Recovery and progress, however, is deemed to be patchy. "Exporters and manufacturers generally have seen some strong demand but others in leisure, hospitality, property and retail have been having a very difficult time," he said.

"But we think Scotland can escape a double dip based on what he see and hear from customers," he said.