The sale is the latest in a string of transactions since HSBC announced massive cost-cutting measures earlier this year, including plans to save up to $3.5 billion by 2013 and to axe 30,000 jobs globally.

Europe's largest bank said in a statement released in Hong Kong that it had agreed to sell its private banking business in Japan to Credit Suisse AG and Credit Suisse Securities (Japan) Ltd.

"The value of the gross assets included in the sale was approximately $2.7bn at 31 October 2011," it said.

The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approvals, should be completed in the second quarter of 2012.

HSBC said Japan remained an "important market" for the London-based bank, which was founded in Hong Kong and Shanghai in 1865 and has traditionally focused on Asia.

"As the worlds third largest economy, with significant trade flows with the rest of the world, Japan continues to be an important market for HSBC," it said.

Assets HSBC has offloaded this year include its United States credit card and retail services business, its Canadian retail brokerage, and retail banking businesses in Russia, Chile and Poland.

Other global banks including Morgan Stanley and Credit Agricole SA have also announced plans to slash jobs in recent months, as the eurozone debt crisis fans fears of global recession.

HSBC last month reported underlying pretax profits sank 35 percent in the three months to September to about $3.0 billion, as bad loans rose in the United States, Hong Kong, Brazil and the Middle East.

Chief executive Stuart Gulliver said in the earnings release that economic and political uncertainty, particularly in Europe, had hit the banking sector's performance in the quarter.

Flooding in Thailand and a stronger yen also weighed on Asia's second-largest economy, which is still running to catch up from the effects of the March 11 quake and tsunami disaster, a government official said.

Exports fell 4.5 percent in the month from a year earlier, increasing the trade deficit to 684.73 billion yen ($8.79 billion), the largest trade loss ever for the month of November, the finance ministry said.

Japan's trade surplus with Europe fell to 27.59 billion yen, with exports down 4.6 percent, the lowest figure for the month of November since January 1979 when records began, a finance ministry official said.

The smallest trade surplus ever with Europe was 26.8 billion yen posted in January 2009, he added.

"Factors behind the latest trade readings are the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and a surging yen, which has forced Japanese manufacturers to move production plants overseas," he said.

Japanese exports stood at 5.20 trillion yen in November, down for the second straight month.

Electronics, notably computer chips and video equipment were particularly hard hit in the month, the finance ministry said.

"It is not a seasonal trend to see such a deficit for this time of the year," said the finance ministry official.

"One other factor is the flooding in Thailand, which stopped electronic parts supply to Japan and hindered the export of finished products from here," he said.

Imports rose 11.4 percent to 5.88 trillion yen in the month, as a result of higher fuel costs, the finance ministry said.

Japan, which is still grappling with the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, has shut down most of its atomic reactors as concerns over the safety of the technology grip the nation.

Power companies have instead been forced to ramp up the use -- and therefore the imports to resource-poor Japan -- of fossil fuels to supply the country's electricity-hungry industries and households.

The reading for the November trade deficit was worse than the 440 billion yen deficit expected by economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and the Nikkei newspaper.

Japan's exports to Asia also tumbled 8.0 percent in November from a year ago, the data showed.

In October, the balance of Japan's trade in goods stood at a revised 280.17 billion yen in the red.

"At the bottom line is the economic slowdown, especially in Europe... in addition to a high yen," said Taro Saito, senior economist at NLI Research Institute.

"Flooding in Thailand came on top of that," he said.

"I think the European economy is already in a state of recession, and it will continue to face a very tough time into next year."