Mumbai: HSBC Holdings Plc of the UK, Europe''s biggest bank, is closing its US sub-prime mortgage unit Decision One Mortgage after taking a $945 million charge and loan write-downs.

HSBC Finance, the US consumer finance arm of HSBC, said the business is no longer sustainable and it is cutting 750 jobs at Fort Mill, South Carolina, Phoenix, Arizona and Charlotte, North Carolina.

"It''s no longer sustainable and not the right place to allocate capital in the future," HSBC Holdings Group chief executive Michael Geoghegan said in a statement.

HSBC Finance said it would take a charge of about $880 million on Decision One''s bad assets and about $65 million in after-tax charges for restructuring, including retrenchments and facility closures.

HSBC''s bad debts stood at $6.35 billion in the first half of the year, up 63 per cent from $3.89 billion in the same period last year.

HSBC said it would stop making subrpime mortgages through brokers in the US, as it continues to clean up its home-lending business. HSBC Finance will focus on lending directly to consumers.

HSBC acquired Decision One in 2003 for $14 billion. Decision One is a small part of HSBC''s US operations, which include auto finance and credit cards.

HSBC, the world''s fourth biggest bank is also under pressure from activist investors to shake up its corporate governance. HSBC, with a market value of more than $200 billion, has been criticised for the underperformance of its shares in the last five years and its purchase of Household, which has exposed it to the US sub-prime mortgage crisis.

Several US mortgage lenders have closed down or filed for bankruptcy protection following the sub-prime meltdown. Nearly 90,000 jobs have also been lost in the crisis that affected the US housing industry.