Baudouin Prot, chief executive of BNP Paribas, France's largest bank, on Wednesday abandoned targets set this year for its investment banking business, saying "visibility" was too low given challenging financial market conditions.

In February, Mr Prot vowed that the unit would match its record €8.3bn revenues achieved in 2007. However, after a bad month in March for credit markets, he warned on Wednesday that this would be hard for it to achieve.