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According to Reuters, the index was up 0.4 per cent at the end of the morning session, taking it to 5,302.91 points.
There were rises of as much as 3.3 per cent for Barclays, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group and, in the mining sector, Kazakhmys, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata were among the companies to see their share price rise.
However, a number of firms in the pharmaceutical industry had a poor morning, including GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca, which both limited the FTSE's increase by falling.
Market strategist for City Index Joshua Raymond said that investors were made more confident by the gains that were seen in the US and Asia earlier.
"The miners and banks have really led the turnaround in fortunes for equities this week after recent heavy weakness and this theme has continued today," he added.
Posted by Greg Secker
