The job cuts at Citigroup are more a result of company-specific problems rather than the signal of a trend in the banking sector, one City analyst said.

Kean Marden, of Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander, said that the planned 17,000 cuts at the bank were what is known as "stock specific" — related to a particular company, rather than being indicative of any wider problem.

Marden said that he "did not see this having any direct implications" for recruitment, and pointed out that the bank was looking to outsource 9,500 jobs to India, so the net cuts were not as extreme as first thought. Marden suggested, instead, that the job losses were brought about by a poor share price in relation to competitors, a change in senior management and high cost ratios.

"Citi has had some high-profile slip-ups over the last couple of years and they are not performing as well as some of their global peers," he added. For example, in May 2006, the bank earned a reprimand from the Japanese financial services regulator over a computer glitch that botched almost 275,000 transactions.

Citi employs 9,000 people at Canary Wharf in London, but no definitive figure has been released on job losses there.

Citi's chairman and chief executive Charles Prince is looking to save £5.2bn over three years.