The London market opened on the back foot as Royal Bank of Scotland warned it would see further losses in 2015 after revealing another £2.5 billion in provisions and write-downs.
Taxpayer-backed RBS said it was putting by £1.5 billion to cover civil legal action on US residential mortgage-backed securities, as well as £500 million extra for payment protection insurance (PPI) mis-selling compensation.
The wider FTSE 100 Index was 20.4 points lower at 5890.6, as Brent Crude oil also fell by almost half a US dollar to just above 31 dollars a barrel.
Markets have seen dramatic swings in recent weeks, linked to oil price fluctuations and the implications for the health of world trade.
Among stocks, RBS was down more than 2%, or 6.4p, to 254.7p after the bank added it would also pump another £4.2 billion into its pension scheme.
Spanish-owned lender Santander UK revealed another £450 million hit from PPI, which left its profits 4% lower last year at £1.3 billion.
Lloyds Bank shares fell 1.1p to 63.6p and Barclays was 3.1p lower at 179.8p as investors feared a raft of further provisions in the upcoming annual results season.
Apple chip supplier ARM Holdings was also down more than 2%, or 24p, to 991p after the US technology firm forecast its first ever decline in iPhone sales later this year.
California-based Apple reported the largest single quarter profit in corporate history of 18.4 billion US dollars (£12.8 billion), having sold 74.8 million iPhones in the three-month period.
But iPhone sales grew just 0.4%, the slowest rate in the history of the Apple smartphone, and a huge drop compared to the 46% growth in the same quarter last year.
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