Royal Bank of Scotland is on the rise, after reports it will retain its insurance business Direct Line and Churchill.
Investors seemed to like the idea the bank would not be forced into selling businesses off on the cheap, and its shares are now heading the FTSE 100 leaderboard, up 3.8p at 46.5p.
There was also talk that it had sounded out Mervyn Davies, the chairman of Standard Chartered, to take up the equivalent job at RBS. Suggestions of a new year's profit warning by the bank, now majority owned by the UK government, seem to have been ignored.
Overall leading shares have come off their best levels after an opening dip on Wall Street, with the US market undermined by news that Kuwait had decided to end a $17bn joint venture with Dow Chemical, down around 18%.
So having touched 4326.25, the FTSE 100 is now up 82.60 points at 4299.19.
Oil and mining companies are still among the main risers in both the FTSE 100 and the FTSE 250. Dana Petroleum has climbed 99p to £10.44 after news that the Grouse oilfield in the North Sea - a partnership with Venture Production, up 14p at 438.75p - had started production with around 10,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, in line with initial targets.
