Financial services on both sides of the Atlantic suffered further woes on Tuesday as Fidelity, Credit Suisse and Capital, the fund manager, announced job cuts.

Credit Suisse said that it would cut a further 500 jobs in its global investment banking business. It has already laid off 1,500 workers since the credit crunch began.

Royal Bank of Scotland refused to rule out redundancies, but denied that it planned to cut almost 10 per cent of its 170,000-strong global workforce, after being forced to raise £20 billion as part of the Government’s £500 billion banks bailout.

Fidelity Investments, the mutual fund company, is preparing to cut about 400 jobs, or 10 per cent of its workforce, in the UK, Europe and Asia. The cuts at the group’s Fidelity International unit are part of a global restructuring that is expected to result in about 4,000 of its 44,500 jobs being lost.

Fund managers such as Fidelity make most of their money from fee income, which is based on a percentage of their assets under management. As the value of the funds’ share and bond investments has plummeted, so Fidelity’s fees have fallen. Furthermore, customers withdrew $8.3 billion (£5.2 billion) from Fidelity share and bond funds in August and September, according to research from Morningstar, as the mutual fund industry suffered an exodus of investors.

A spokeswoman for Fidelity declined to comment on possible job losses, but said: “Prudent management requires us all to conduct an assessment of our ongoing business needs to make certain our resources are properly aligned to ensure we can continue to provide superior service to our clients and customers going forward. Naturally those reviews include an examination of our all expenditures, as well as staffing,” she added.

The looming Fidelity redundancies came as Capital Group, one of the largest shareholders in Citigroup, conceded that it would cut about 60 of its 850 European staff, who are based in London and Geneva. The group employs about 9,500 staff worldwide, although no job cuts are planned outside Europe.

Capital said that the redundancies were the result of a loss of mandates, rather than the recent turmoil in the stock market slump. The group said it was a victim of an industry-wide movement away from defined benefit pension plans, in which it specialises, to defined contribution plans.

A Capital spokesman also conceded that its funds had underperformed many of its competitors, placing some of the blame on the quality of its research.

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