A strong rebound in banking stocks saw Britain's top share index end higher on Friday after a turbulent week, with investors pinning hopes on more action from the European Central Bank to deal with the region's debt crisis.

As traders cited market talk of help from France with some form of capital injection to bolster French banks' balance sheets, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale jumped 9.8 percent and 8.8 percent respectively on Friday.

British peers felt a knock-on effect, with Barclays , Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland clustered towards the top of the blue-chip leader board, up 3.5-5.1 percent.

The FTSE 100 index ended up 25.20 points, or 0.5 percent, at 5,066.81, having dipped as low as 4,928.14.

The sector was sharply lower earlier on fears European banks would take more writedowns on Greek debt exposure.

A grim economic outlook from the U.S. Federal Reserve and downbeat manufacturing data in China have heightened fears the global economy could be heading back into recession, particularly hurting commodity stocks in the previous session.

Randgold Resources and Fresnillo , down 4.7 percent and 4.3 percent respectively, were the biggest fallers in the sector as gold and silver fell sharply.

Traders blamed gold's fall on margin calls to cover losses in other assets such as equities and silver, and distress selling by investors who have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the turmoil on the credit market.

The FTSE ended the week down 5.6 percent, wiping 81 billion pounds ($125 billion) off its value. Read More