The FTSE 100 closed higher following positive US retail sales and amid hopes two of the eurozone's struggling members would receive bailouts later this week.
The index closed 12.3 points higher at 5805.6 after the US Commerce Department reported retail sales had grown for the third month in a row in September.
Meanwhile, investors were looking ahead to a week in which Greece is expected to agree on €13.5 billion (£10.8bn) worth of spending cuts to allow the next bailout payment to be signed off, while Spain may also request a bailout.
The pound was down against the US dollar at 1.60 as the greenback strengthened on the back of the retail figures. Sterling was up against the euro at 1.24.
But Royal Bank of Scotland dominated much of the focus on the market as analysts warned over the impact of its collapsed £1.65 billion branch sale with Santander. The state-owned lender fell 1% or 2.8p to 268.1p after Santander ran out of patience with the protracted integration process relating to the deal for 316 branches.
RBS, which must offload the branches by 2013 under European state-aid rules, was one of the biggest fallers in the top flight.
Investec warned RBS was now likely to settle for terms that are £500 million to £1bn worse than those originally agreed with Santander.
However, other banking shares fared well with Barclays adding 2% or 4.7p to 236.9p, Lloyds Banking Group rising 0.6p to 40.3p and HSBC advancing 5p to 600.3p.
Mining stocks populated the top of the fallers board with Kazakhmys down 25.5p at 690p and Anglo American off 36p at 1788.5p.
BT was 1.7p in the red at 217p after Barclays cut its price target on the stock and highlighted the risks associated with the telecoms company's move into sports content.
Financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown enjoyed another strong session adding 13.5p to 725.5p, after its strong trading update on Friday continued to buoy shares.
Transport firm FirstGroup fell another 3% after the Government announced Virgin had been asked to continue running the troubled West Coast Main Line for another few months.
The temporary fix has been proposed by the Department for Transport after its U-turn over the award of a new franchise earlier this month which had been given to FirstGroup. Shares were down 6.1p to 184.6p.
The biggest Footsie riser was Admiral Group up 32p at 1119p.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article