Global banking major HSBC has emerged as one of the worst sufferers of Bernard Madoffs alleged $50-billion fraud as the financial services firm has exposure of about one billion dollar in the investment manager's collapsed venture, a media report says.

Quoting people familiar with the situation the Financial Times (FT) said "HSBC has emerged as one the largest victims of Bernard Madoffs alleged fraud with potential exposure of about USD one billion to the investment managers collapsed venture."

"HSBCs direct exposure is believed to be about USD one billion in loans provided to clients who invested some $500 million of their own funds in Madoffs venture," FT added.

HSBC's exposure stemmed from loans it provided to institutional clients, mainly hedge funds, that wanted to invest with Madoff, the newspaper said quoting people close to the situation.

Under the typical terms of these deals, if the US authorities recover any funds from Mr Madoff, HSBC would be paid first, with its clients suffering the first tranche of losses.

HSBC on Sunday had said that it was "carefully reviewing" its position but expected its final exposure to Madoffs firm not to be "material", the daily said.

Some of the other major victims of the Bernard Madoff's fraud case include France's BNP Paribas, Spain's Banco Santander, Japan's Nomura, Royal Bank of Scotland and Man Group.

BNP Paribas has said its maximum potential loss on Madoffs funds was about 350 million euro ($468 million).

While, Banco Santander said it had a direct exposure of 17 million euro while clients of its hedge funds had 2.33 billion euro at risk in Madoffs' firm.

Japans Nomura on Monday said it had 27.5 billion yen ($303 million) of exposure. Royal Bank of Scotland and Man Group have also outlined potential exposures of 400 million pound and $360 million, respectively.

Last week, Madoff told senior employees, including his sons, that his investment management firm had lost $50 billion over a number of years, according to court documents.

Madoff is the founder of Bernard Madoff Investment Securities and a former chairman of the Nasdaq stock market.