Battered banking stocks drag down Footsie

The FTSE 100 Index close down 4.9 points at 5203.6 as banking stocks took a battering on concerns about exposure to Enron.

Abbey National slumped 5%, 57p to 978p, after saying its exposure stacked up to £115 million.

Other banking stocks were pulled down in its wake, with Royal Bank of Scotland down 30p at £16.25, Lloyds TSB off 7p at 722p, HBOS down 4½p to 825p and Standard Chartered 38½p lower at 805p.

Alliance & Leicester slid 8p to 763p, reversing gains seen earlier in the session.

Other fallers included Shell, off 2p to 484p while BP ended flat at 518½p, after an earlier slide, as the market still waited for oil production cuts. Smaller rival Enterprise Oil fell 13½p to 426p.

Cable & Wireless was also a faller, slipping 12¾p to 330¼p after spending £600 million buying 30 data centres run by US web-hosting firm Exodus Communications.

And British Airways closed down, off 4½p to 203½p. The group last night received a blow from credit rating agency Standard & Poor's, which lowered one of its key ratings for the airline yesterday to junk status for the first time.

But BT Group surged 4% or 14¾p to 277p after Oftel's proposal yesterday to lift regulatory controls on important international routes.

Centrica rose 6p to 213p after buying gas appliance servicing firm Trolhurst for £8.5 million.

Among smaller stocks, Wolverhampton & Dudley climbed 15p to 507½p, after a 17% jump in full-year profits.