Yesterday bank chiefs used the “R” word.

This is what Stephen Green, chairman of HSBC, said: “The outlook for the rest of the year remains unusually difficult to foresee in the current environment. Many parts of the world continue to enjoy strong economic growth … however, it seems increasingly likely that the US will enter a recession in 2008, the length of which is uncertain.”

As for the long-awaited recovery in the US housing market, this is what HSBC CEO Michael Geoghegan said: “We don’t think this is a 2008 event, it’s a 2009 event.”

Meanwhile, while at a conference in New York, JPMorgan Chase & Co’s chief executive, James Dimon, said that although he felt the credit crisis was around three-quarters of the way through,  a US economic recovery is still some time off.

“Even if the capital markets crisis resolves, it does not mean that this country will not go into a bad recession,” he said.

“The recession just started. We don’t know if it’s going to be mild or severe…We’re thinking there’s a third of a chance that it’s going to be pretty bad… closer to the 1982 recession than the very mild recessions we had in 2001 and 1990.”