Fears were growing today that giant Swiss bank will announce another round of job cuts tomorrow, with as many as 10,000 posts set to be axed.

The bank today confirmed it is cutting 240 jobs in its Asian wealth-management business. But it refused to comment on suggestions that this is the just the start of another round of global blood-letting.

Oswald Grübel, the bank's new chairman, is to address shareholders at their annual meeting tomorrow, for the first time since he was parachuted in from retirement in February. He used to run arch-rival Credit Suisse.

The bank has already announced some 11,000 job losses since the credit crunch began, and said in February it planned to get down to 75,000 by the end of the year. But it now looks likely that overall staff numbers could fall as low as 65,000.

Some 7000 people still work for UBS in London, which is the centre for most of its investment banking business. It was the capital that bore the brunt of the first round of cuts.

Sources suggest that the latest round of cuts could well see heavy job losses in the bank's domestic retail banking business, in wealth management and in its marketing department.

UBS was Europe's worst-hit bank during the credit crisis and was forced to make writedowns of more than $50 billion before turning to the Swiss government for a $32 million bailout.

UBS shares rose by more than 10% today.