By Jeremy Gaunt and Matthias Sobolewski

LONDON/BERLIN (Reuters) - More European governments followed Germany's lead on Monday offering blanket deposit guarantees to savers in a frantic effort to calm fears among investors over the worst financial crisis in 80 years.

However, the moves failed to comfort financial markets as investors from Tokyo to London slashed risk from portfolios and positioned for a further tightening of credit and bank lending and the rising risk of a serious global economic recession.

Despite concerted efforts to stem the crisis, investors were clearly seeking more concrete steps from authorities, perhaps in the form of coordinated action from next weekend's meeting of the Group of Seven industrial nations.

In a sign that the crisis is biting deeper in Asia, South Korea said it wanted to hold talks with China and Japan.

The Bank of Japan offered to lend 1 trillion yen against pooled collateral in an auction to inject liquidity into the market.

In Europe, Sweden became the latest country to act, with the government saying it would expand bank deposit guarantees and the central bank raising the amount of loans offered to banks.

It followed Germany's pledge on Sunday to guarantee private deposit accounts, a move which spurred similar action by Austria and Denmark. Ireland issued the first such guarantee last week, prompting criticism of a fragmented European Union response.

European banks have been hit hard by the fallout from a crisis that began in the United States when the housing market collapsed and bad mortgage debts multiplied.  Continued...