The Financial Times reports that French bank BNP Paribas posted a 21% fall in first-quarter profits Wednesday. Net income came in at $3.06bn. Pretax profit at the corporate & investment banking unit fell 73% at $419m.

Firm CEO Baudouin Prot said that 'the impact on our capital markets activity of, I would say, (the) violent crisis of especially March has hit the numbers'. On a more upbeat note, he continued: 'I'm cautiously optimistic in the sense that the first-quarter will appear to have been the hardest part of the crisis. Having said that, visibility regarding the trend in capital markets over the next few months is low'. Financial News brings us back down to reality, however, by revealing that BNP's investment banking pool is already some 70% down on last year.

Bloomberg reports that Barclays confirmed Thursday that it had written down $3.3bn in the first-quarter, taking its total writedown figure to some $7.7bn since the credit crunch began to bite last year. Investment banking unit Barclays Capital is said to have been profitable in the first period.

Credit Agricole came out Wednesday as expected and confirmed that it was planning a $9.2bn rights issue to shore up its balance sheet.

Bloomberg reports that Dexia SA has confirmed that first-quarter profit fell some 60% to $446.6m. The news agency also reports that ING Groep's first-quarter profits fell 19% to $2.4bn. Impairments, trading losses and writedowns reduced pretax profit by $124m in the period, with lower valuations on real estate and private equity and smaller realized gains on equities cut $675m from earnings after tax.

Reuters reports that Investec posted a 15% increase in first-quarter profits Thursday. Pretax operating profits came in at $1.05bn in the period.

The Global & Mail reports that Royal Bank of Canada will take a $855m first-quarter hit from the fallout of US subprime. CEO Gordon Nixon said: 'We are not happy about taking any writedowns and certainly do not take them lightly. That said, these writedowns are manageable and our risk profile continues to remain within our risk appetite'.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Royal Bank of Scotland shareholders have approved that $24bn rights issue required to beef up its balance sheet.

CNBC reports that Oppenheimer analyst Meredith Whitney has cut her earnings estimates on Goldman, Lehman, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. The news agency also reports that Fitch Ratings has come out and said that it is likely that global banks have already disclosed 80% of their losses related to US subprime lending.

Reuters reports that SocGen's new CEO Federic Oudea said that he felt confident that the bank will remain independent. Oudea said: 'I'm convinced that Societe Generale is perfectly armed to develop in a profitable manner while remaining independent'.

The New York Times reports that Barclays Capital has hired five senior investment bankers from ABN AMRO. The hires represent the firm's largest single push into M&A.

Finally, the newspaper also reports that, according to Dealogic, JPMorgan is just edging out Goldman at the top of this year's M&A league table. JPMorgan has advised on deals worth some $295.2bn so far this year, compared to the $291.5bn Goldman has worked on.

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