HSBC Holdings, Europe's biggest bank, will today announce a writedown of US$4.6 billion linked to losses against mortgages, credit cards and other loans to United States consumers, according to the Observer newspaper.

The writedowns will take the total amount of credit losses linked to the collapse of the US subprime mortgage market at the London-based bank to almost US$17 billion over the past 15 months, the UK newspaper said.

HSBC may have to make writedowns totaling US$15 billion this year, taking losses to US$27 billion over two years, the newspaper said, citing James Hutson, an analyst at Keefe Bruyette & Woods.

The world's biggest banks and securities firms have reported asset writedowns and credit losses of US$323 billion linked to the collapse of the US subprime mortgage market since the beginning of 2007.

HSBC paid US$15.5 billion for Household International Inc in 2003, becoming one of the largest US subprime lenders. The 142-year-old bank took US$10.6 billion in loan losses across the company in 2006 and US$17.2 billion last year.

HSBC will announce bad-debt charges at its US business of US$3.5 billion to US$4 billion, the Sunday Times said. The bank will post a first-quarter loss of more than US$1 billion at its American unit as a result of the charges, it said.

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Richard Lindsay, a London-based spokesman for HSBC, declined to comment on the reports when contacted by Bloomberg News.

HSBC Chief Executive Officer Michael Geoghegan has replaced managers, closed mortgage units and stopped trading and selling mortgage-backed securities in the US in response to the subprime collapse. Bad debts at HSBC's US former Household unit may rise 27 percent to US$15 billion this year, analysts at UBS said May 2.

The bank, which is due to release a trading update at 9:15am London time today, has gained 2.9 percent this year in London dealing, the best performance in the eight-member FTSE 350 Banks Index, which has declined 8.7 percent.