NEW YORK - CITIGROUP Inc said on Monday it plans to cut about 50,000 jobs as souring economies and global credit conditions cause the US bank with the farthest reach worldwide to retrench.

The cuts are expected in the near-term and are on top of the roughly 23,000 jobs eliminated by the second-largest US bank between January and September. This would leave Citigroup with about 300,000 jobs worldwide, down 20 per cent from the end of 2007.

GENEVA - INSUFFICIENT regulation and weak risk management are key causes of the economic crisis and must be remedied to get the world's financial industry back on its feet, a top banker said on Monday.

Mr Nout Wellink, President of the Dutch National Bank and chairman of the Basel Committee on banking supervision, said in a speech in Beijing that 'regulatory gaps... left important segments of the financial system under-regulated'.

ZURICH - SWISS bank UBS axed bonuses for top executives on Monday and said it would introduce a more transparent pay system in the most far-reaching changes on pay at a top European lender during the credit crisis.

UBS, which is struggling in the subprime crisis and whose shares slumped to a new all-time low on Monday, said Chairman Peter Kurer, Chief Executive Marcel Rohner and other executive board members would not get any bonuses this year.