The credit crunch fall-out continues with the axing of more banking and financial sector jobs in London.

Credit Suisse is cutting 650 jobs and top executives have lost their bonuses after the bank lost £1.1 billion in the last quarter.

Japanese finance house Nomura is cutting another 1,000 jobs in the City.

Nomura bought the European arm of the US bank Lehman Brothers that failed in September.

Barclays Bank, buyers of Lehman’s US operations, is shedding 3,000 jobs there.

Back in London, Lloyds TSB is backing small businesses through the recession by promising passing on base rate cuts and agreeing any reasonable request for short-term finance.

The promise follows ‘full and frank’ discussions with the Government as the bank prepares to raise capital through a government-backed share placing and takes over HBOS in a move that is likely to leave the government as a significant shareholder.

Lloyds has already agreed to maintain lending to small businesses as a condition of receiving the government's capital injection.

Royal Bank of Scotland – owner of NatWest – that has the Government as a majority stakeholder already, made a similar commitment not to increase overdraft rates for small businesses.

HSBC said the bank already offered all of the commitments pledged by Lloyds to its small business customers. Barclays said it had lent more money to small business this year than last and new lending was up by more than 20 per cent year-on-year.

On the high street, Morrison’s is bucking the trend with an 8.1 % rise in sales, beating the market leader Tesco – that announced a measly 2% increase earlier in the week.

London equities were moved higher as traders awaited expected rate cuts from the Bank of England and the European Central Bank.

The FTSE 100 rose 1.3 per cent to 4,222.35, a further advance of 1.3 per cent coming after a 47-point increase over the previous session. In New York, the DOW also closed up 51.82 at 8592.