* Financing demand for copper ebbs on credit fears

* Up to 80 pct of copper imports could be for financing demand

* Oil, equities unscathed by bond default

By Melanie Burton and Susan Thomas

SYDNEY/LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) - China's first domestic bond default has shaken the foundations of the copper market, stoking investor worries that financing deals that have locked up vast quantities of copper could unravel.

This anxiety has led to three days of heavy selling in copper, while having little noticeable effect on other global financial markets.

The Shanghai Futures Exchange's most-traded copper contract reached its lowest level in more than four years on Tuesday, and the London copper benchmark fell to its lowest in more than three years later in the day.

"A lot of that is linked to the financing deals and you start to wonder are they at risk, and I think that is what the market is indeed worried about, and that's why copper has taken the brunt," BNP Paribas analyst Stephen Briggs said.

The default on a bond payment by China's Chaori Solar last week signalled a reassessment of credit risk in a market where even high-yielding debt had been seen as carrying an implicit state guarantee.

On Tuesday, solar panel maker and power company Baoding Tianwei Baobian Electric Co Ltd announced a second straight year of net losses, leading to a suspension of its stock and bonds on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and stoking fears that it, too, may default.

The metals markets saw the default as a sign of tighter credit to come for users of metals and for financiers that have used the metal as collateral for borrowing, analysts said.

If their loans are not renewed and financing deals start to unravel, the investors could unload their metal supplies on to the market.

Similar financing deals are in place using metals such as zinc and iron ore, but copper has been the preferred choice for the Chinese trade and finance community.

"If there are worries in a general sense about financial conditions in China, copper is perhaps more exposed to that than other metals, because we've seen a substantial rise in inventories in China this year," Briggs said.

At least one U.S. scrap copper trader has suffered "large" losses after the Chinese default, one of the first signs that sinking prices and tightening credit are taking a toll on the physical market.

Some analysts and traders estimated that 60 to 80 percent of China's copper imports in recent years may have been used as collateral, although none of them could give a definitive figure for how much copper is now tied up in deals.