European shares turn negative; banks fall

LONDON, Oct 26 - European shares turned lower in early trade on Monday as banking stocks reversed early gains and Dutch bancassurer <ING.AS> slipped.

By 0854 GMT, the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 <.FTEU3> index of top shares was down 0.1 percent at 1,008.42 points having earlier been up as much as 1,013.60 points.

Banks featured among the worst performers. UniCredit <CRDI.MI>, UBS <UBSN.VX>, Lloyds Banking Group <LLOY.L> were down 0.8 to 2.3 percent.

ING fell 7 percent after the company said it would split itself in two and launched a 7.5 billion euro rights issue to repay some of its state aid.