Hamilton Accies are planning legal action against the Royal Bank of Scotland after falling victim to a £1m scam.

The Premiership side claim "failures" in the RBS security system allowed fraudsters to walk away with nearly "every penny" of the club's money.

Accies say that RBS should shoulder "50%" of the blame over the fraud. They are calling for a payment of £400,000 from the bank to offset their losses.

RBS has issued a robust denial it mishandled the club's account information, stating there were no lapses in security. The bank added that it repeatedly offered the club advice on its banking arrangements prior to the fraud.

Police are investigating last October's "vishing" scam that saw phone scammers convince an Accies employee to move cash into 26 accounts to prevent theft.

Three accounts belonging to Hamilton Accies were emptied of more than £989,000 on October 9 and 10. The first two payments - of £40,000 and £70,000 - were initially suspended by RBS's cyber security team.

The employee - sole authorised user of the club's Bankline accounts - was convinced to ignore the warnings and continue the transactions.

"You wouldn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to see something was wrong here," said Colin McGowan, the club's chief executive.

"On day two, £655,000 went out with 20 transactions. They made no attempt whatsoever to contact a second person, even though they've intervened twice, they suspected something was wrong."

Mr McGowan states that Accies lost "close on every single penny" during the con. He added the club is still experiencing "traumatic aftershocks".

Since the scam, Accies have recovered some of the money through suspended transactions - but they are still £800,000 out of pocket.

Chairman Ronnie MacDonald also criticised the RBS security: "To write a cheque for our community programme, we need two signatories if it's over £1500. And yet, over a period of 24 hours, £1m can be removed from our account."

Hamilton Accies have instructed law firm Levy & McRae to prepare a case against the bank.

RBS said: "The bank is confident that there has been no breakdown in our security procedures in regards to this scam and that no unauthorised persons were able to gain access to any of the club's banking facilities.

"All payments were keyed and approved by the authorised user of the club's account. The bank contacted HAFC (Hamilton Academical Football Club) to question the transactions on two separate occasions and the customer instructed the bank to continue with the payments."