Banking giant HSBC yesterday set aside another £290 million to settle its share of the mis-selling payment protection insurance (PPI) scandal.

The additional expense inflated the bank’s total PPI provision to around £750 million, but Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver still said that he doubted that it would be the final provision.

Speaking on the topic, Gulliver said, “I honestly can't say this will be the final provision. There remains a degree of uncertainty about the eventual costs of redress for this matter.”

Gulliver blamed bogus PPI claims for the increase in the banks’ bill. He accused claims ­management companies of submitting bogus cases for people who never purchased a PPI policy.

When asked about the potential affects of Greece’s departure from the eurozone, Gulliver said he didn’t that any such move debt-ridden Greece would result in the break up of the entire eurozone.

He claimed that HSBC's exposure to Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain and Portugal was quite manageable.

HSBC’s ­underlying profits jumped 25 per cent to £4.2 billion in the first three months of 2012, thanks to sever cost-cutting plans. The bank slashed around 14,000 jobs ­worldwide last year and around 3,500 in the first quarter of this year. It recently announced plans to cut its UK workforce further by more than 2,200 in the remaining months of this year.