Dubai, whose extravagant building projects have been largely put on hold since the start of the global financial crisis, said on Wednesday it would ask creditors at its flagship firms Dubai World and property developer Nakheel to delay repayment on billions of dollars of debt.

Among the biggest fallers were HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and ING, whose shares all fell over 4 percent.

They were among nine banks who were bookrunners on an outstanding US$5.5 billion syndicate loan to Dubai World in June 2008, according to Thomson Reuters LPC data.