The banking sector is making ground, offsetting losses by miners.Blue chip lenders are firmer in London after the Bank of England resisted calls to raise interest rates. The benchmark rate is unchanged at a record low of 0.5% and the quantitative easing programme has been maintained at £200bn. HSBC, RBS, Barclays, Lloyds and Standard Chartered are among the ten best performers.Vedanta Resources and Cairn Energy were off the mark after the deadline for Vedanta's $9.6bn majority interest purchase of Cairn India was pushed back from 15 April to 20 May, to allow time for Vedanta's subsidiary Sesa Goa to buy up to a 20% stake in Cairn India.---bcFTSE 100 - RisersHSBC Holdings (HSBA) 672.90p +1.89%Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 43.53p +1.75%Barclays (BARC) 299.00p +1.42%BAE Systems (BA.) 336.10p +1.36%Old Mutual (OML) 144.20p +1.26%Standard Chartered (STAN) 1,699.50p +1.16%National Grid (NG.) 596.50p +1.10%Invensys (ISYS) 338.40p +1.05%Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 62.45p +0.79%GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,222.50p +0.78%FTSE 100 - FallersGKN (GKN) 201.50p -3.68%Vedanta Resources (VED) 2,425.00p -2.88%3i Group (III) 275.80p -2.54%ITV (ITV) 76.70p -2.42%Kingfisher (KGF) 259.10p -2.19%Next (NXT) 2,057.00p -1.86%Cairn Energy (CNE) 448.10p -1.82%Serco Group (SRP) 542.00p -1.72%British Land Co (BLND) 547.50p -1.71%Capital Shopping Centres Group (CSCG) 383.90p -1.66%