Lloyds Banking Group led the market lower on Monday. Shares in the part-nationalised bank had the biggest fall in the FTSE 100, hit by more speculation about the size of an expected equity issue and events in the Netherlands, where ING announced plans to break itself up to appease the European Commission.

Lloyds ended 7.2 per cent lower at 89.34p following reports that it was days away from launching a £12bn equity fund raising that would help the bank escape the UK government’s costly asset protection scheme.