SYDNEY, March 16 (Reuters) - The Australian and New Zealand dollars were whipsawed on Thursday as fears for the global banking system sent investors fleeing from riskier assets, though the rush to safety also gave a big boost to local bonds.

Markets were spooked when Swiss regulators were forced to pledge liquidity support to Credit Suisse after the lender's shares tumbled as much as 30% on Wednesday.

Credit Suisse then quickly exercised an option to borrow up to 50 billion Swiss francs ($54 billion) from the Swiss National Bank, which could help calm the worst fears.

The turmoil all but eclipsed Australian data showing employment rebounded by a strong 64,600 in February, while the jobless rate fell back to 3.5%.

Normally, the upbeat result would have added to the case for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to hike interest rates again at its next meeting in April.

Yet, such was the global uncertainty that investors were wagering the RBA's 10-month tightening campaign was over and the next move would be down.

Swaps and futures even implied around an 8% chance the RBA would cut its 3.60% cash rate by 25 basis points in April. Rates were seen falling to 3.27% by August, a radical change from a month ago when investors had expected them to peak at 4.10%.

"The labour market figures underline that the economy is still operating well above sustainable levels and we expect the RBA to press ahead with further tightening next month," said Marcel Thieliant, head of Asia Pacific economics at Capital Economics.

"There are still three weeks until the next RBA meeting and it's possible that tensions in financial markets caused by ailing banks in the US and Europe spiral out of control."

The latter risk has seen Australian three-year bond yields drop to 2.87%, having fallen 47 basis points in just five sessions to their lowest since August.

News of the Credit Suisse rescue did help the Aussie edge back up to $0.6637, having fallen 0.9% overnight to as low as $0.6590. Support lies at $0.6565 with resistance around $0.6716.

The kiwi held at $0.6177, having taken an added hit from data showing the New Zealand economy contracted by a surprisingly sharp 0.6% in the December quarter.

The grim result only reinforced the market move to pricing in fewer rate hikes from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ).

Swaps now implied a quarter-point hike in April was a 50-50 chance, compared to a dead certainty a week ago. The peak for rates was seen at 5.09%, well short of the RBNZ's own projection of 5.50%.

"We continue to expect a 25 bp hike at the April RBNZ meeting to a terminal rate of 5% as our base case, although we acknowledge the great uncertainty around this outlook in light of recent volatility in global financial markets and the banking system," Andrew Boak, an economist at Goldman Sachs. (Reporting by Wayne Cole; Editing by Sonali Paul)