Banking shares were mixed after Spanish bank Santander, the biggest in the eurozone, revealed that its net profit plummeted in the final quarter of 2011. London's FTSE 100 index of top shares rose 0.84 percent to 5,718.27 points in late morning deals, Frankfurt's DAX 30 index added 0.99 percent to 6,507.54 points and in Paris the CAC 40 won 1.20 percent to 3,304.78. The euro increased to $1.3183 from $1.3134 late in New York on Monday. "Greece continues to pull global market strings, with rumours of bad news forcing the markets down and rumours of good propelling the market higher," said analyst Rebecca O'Keeffe at online brokerage Interactive Investor. "Continued delays in these talks saw Europe slump yesterday, but comments from the Greek prime minister saying progress in the debt swap talks has been made, have sent European stocks higher this morning." Europe on Tuesday raced to finalise a deal that would cut Greece's massive debt after EU leaders set a weekend deadline for a last-chance bailout to save the country from financial collapse. European Union president Herman Van Rompuy called for a deal between Greece and its bank creditors on a debt writedown plus the completion of a new 130 billion euro ($172 billion) rescue package "by the end of the week." The appeal came at the first EU summit of the year which ended late Monday with 25 of 27 EU states joining a German-led pact tightening budget discipline across Europe and a deal on a permanent rescue fund for the eurozone. Britain and the Czech Republic refused to sign. Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said he hoped to reach a deal with banks "in the coming days" after weeks of complex negotiations aimed at slashing 100 billion euros from the country's 350-billion-euro debt mountain. Greece is racing against the clock to avert bankruptcy, with 14.5 billion euros in bond redemptions due on March 20. The European Central Bank (ECB), eurozone governments and other EU institutions holding Greek bonds are also under growing pressure to accept losses. Athens is trying to wrap up a deal with private investors -- including banks, insurance companies and investment funds -- that have been asked to take a 50 percent "haircut," or discount, on the debt owed to them. In company news Tuesday, Santander said its net profit scraped in at 47 million euros in the fourth quarter of 2011, down 98 percent from the 2.101 billion euros it made a year earlier. The result was far below analysts' expectations -- a poll by Dow Jones Newswires found their consensus forecast was for a net profit of 1.7 billion euros. The bottom line took a hit as Santander protected itself against the risk of a drop in the value of its property-related assets by making provisions amounting to 3.183 billion euros. Despite the fall in profits, Santander shares climbed 1.25 percent to 6.059 euros on the Madrid stock market, which was 0.55 percent higher in late morning deals. Traders said they welcomed the high level of money set aside to cover property losses. In Asia, stock markets mostly ended higher on Tuesday in the wake of the EU summit, but traders remained cautious owing to the situation in Greece. The Tokyo stock market gained 0.11 percent, also boosted by upbeat Japanese data. Seoul climbed 0.79 percent, Shanghai won 0.33 percent and Hong Kong advanced 1.14 percent in value. Sydney ended 0.23 percent lower.