Europe's biggest bank HSBC has written off $3.2bn (Ј1.6bn) in the first three months of 2008 as a result of its exposure to the US sub-prime market.
The write downs, which are lower than the total written off in the final quarter of 2007, are in line with what the bank had predicted.
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It also reported a further $2.6bn of write-downs in its global banking arm.
'Encouraged'
The bank said that profits in the US had fallen but that other markets remained strong.
The latest writedown takes the amount of bad debt incurred by the bank in the US to Ј9bn over the past year.
But growth in Asia helped counter the big hit taken on US home loans - meaning profits were still bigger than the same period a year earlier.
"I am encouraged by the way we have increased pre-tax profits in every one of the major countries in which we operate in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Latin America," said group chief executive, Michael Geoghegan.
Private and commercial banking divisions saw record profits in the quarter, he added.
The comments, as well as the writedowns being no worse than expected, helped push HSBC shares up in morning trading.
(BBC)
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