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Worries over the exposure of financial institutions to the debt crisis in the eurozone caused Barclays, Standard Chartered, Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC to drop by as much as 3.6 per cent, Reuters reports.
By 08:57 BST, the index was down 1.4 per cent to 5,053.48 points, with mining firms also among those faring badly.
There were dips of as much as 3.2 per cent for Xstrata, Rio Tinto, Eurasian Natural Resources, Kazakhmys, Vedanta Resources and BHP Billiton, however Randgold Resources added 0.7 per cent, making it one of only two firms to have gained on the index.
Stock markets around Europe have also fared badly this morning and the decline on the FTSE means it continues the slide seen on Friday afternoon, which was trigged by the release of worse-than-expected US employment data.
Posted by Clive Arneil
