HSBC cut 500 jobs in Asia yesterday, confirming that bankers worldwide face a highly uncertain future.

Britain’s largest bank by market value said that the dismissals, 90 per cent of which fall in Hong Kong, were necessary given deteriorating global conditions.

The move came weeks after HSBC cut 1,100 workers in its global banking and markets divisions – 500 of them in Britain – and a day after Citigroup said that it would be shedding 52,000 staff. The job losses suggest that regional growth will not save Asia’s financial centres from the effects of the credit crisis and HSBC’s latest move takes the number of banking and brokerage staff dismissed in the wake of the credit crisis to about 160,000 worldwide. Institutions ranging from former Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs to British high street stalwart Royal Bank of Scotland have culled employees in attempts to stanch losses and to remodel themselves for a new financial era.

Peter Wong, an HSBC executive director, told employees: “Such decisions are always exceptionally difficult and are a result of organisational changes as well as deteriorating economic conditions and our cautious outlook for 2009.”

The cull means that HSBC, which employs about 90,000 people in the Asia Pacific region, is trimming its workforce in Hong Kong by about 2 per cent. Hong Kong’s economy has just dipped into its first recession since 2003, when the Sars epidemic struck.

The bank, which has set aside $42.3 billion (£28.1 billion) for bad loans since the start of 2006, is cutting jobs in areas spanning commercial and personal banking.

Asian banks have largely weathered the economic turmoil of recent months better than their Western peers, but in recent weeks it has become clear that they will be affected as Eastern economies, especially exporters, suffer from plummeting Western demand and as defaults and credit costs rise in domestic markets.

DBS, SouthEast Asia’s largest bank, has said that it would lose 900 jobs, or 6 per cent of its headcount.

Yesterday, ICICI, India’s largest private sector bank, halved its annual target for lending growth to 15 per cent in the wake of high borrowing costs and a slowing economy. Shares in the company have plunged about 70 per cent from their peak.

Elsewhere in Asia, Mitsubishi UFJ, of Japan, and Macquarie Group, of Australia, both published sharp falls in profits yesterday. However, relief at the news that Macquarie does not plan to tap investors for more cash sent its shares soaring by as much as 26 per cent.

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