(18 April 2016 – Global) Citigroup has posted its first-quarter profits, surpassing market expectations.
The bank’s net income plunged by 27 per cent to US$3.5 billion (A$4.6 billion) from US$4.77 billion a year earlier, the company said in a statement last week.
At the New York-based bank, chief executive officer Mike Corbat has been eliminating jobs and narrowing the firm's focus to markets and business lines where he can generate acceptable returns.
“While our market-sensitive products clearly suffered from weak investor sentiment during the quarter, we continued to make progress in several key areas,” Corbat, 55, said in the statement, citing loan and deposit growth and expense reductions.
Citigroup's operating costs decreased 3 percent to US$10.5 billion. Revenue dipped by 11 percent to US$17.6 billion.
The bank has withdrawn from consumer banking in more than a dozen countries. Earlier this year, it also began cutting thousands of jobs, with at least 2,000 people said to have left its workforce.
“We expect the actions that we took during the quarter to have a positive impact on expenses,” Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach told journalists.