'Unprecedented' volatility in financial markets: French bank chief

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2008

HONG KONG (AFP) — The world's financial markets remain "exceptionally volatile" due to the subprime credit crisis, the chief executive of France's largest bank said in Hong Kong on Tuesday.

"Since I last presented to the market at the end of February, the environment remains very challenging and the market exceptionally volatile," Baudouin Prot from BNP Paribas told reporters here.

"Then, through most of March, we saw a worsening of the crisis, with extreme and unprecedented volatility expanding to new asset classes.

"This has created a very adverse trading environment," he said.

Despite the uncertainty, Prot said BNP was aiming to repeat record revenues from 2007 this year. Last year the bank earned a net profit of 7.8 billion euros (11.6 billion...