A letter notifying staff of lay-offs was sent out on Friday, the person said.

Most of those retrenched were employed in Beijing, although 'a very few' jobs in Hong Kong were also affected, the person said.

CICC was the first joint-venture investment bank set up in the mainland in 1995. It is based in Beijing and has offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, New York, Singapore and London. Kenny Lee Yiu-sun, chief executive of First China Securities, said CICC tended to focus on initial public offerings and similar deals, and needed to adjust its headcount when fewer such deals were in the pipeline.

'Other mainland banks or securities firms seem to have no big lay-off plan. Some of them are in expansion mode,' Lee said.

Chinese securities firms were trying to hire equity sales traders late last year, but the hiring pace has slowed or ground to a temporary halt in the past month, largely reflecting Chinese institutions' concerns over possible fallout from the euro-zone debt crisis.

The CICC job losses show that mainland lenders may finally be joining a global banking trend of cutbacks amid weak financial markets and economic uncertainties.

Leading United States and European banks last year announced more than 100,000 redundancies, with some wielding the axe immediately and others phasing in the cuts over three to four years.

HSBC has announced planned job cuts of 30,000 globally, including 3,000 in Hong Kong, by the end of next year.

In Hong Kong, Daiwa Securities and Mizuho Financial said they would trim a total of 500 positions.

30,000

US banking giant Bank of America will cut this many jobs

- Citigroup will cut 4,500 jobs

- UBS will slash 3,500 jobs

- RBS will cut 3,000 jobs