Citigroup’s Indian arm has witnessed improvement in asset quality even when the first quarter net profit of the global banking giant dipped by 32 per cent.
“NCL (net credit loss) improvement continued to be driven by Mexico cards and India,” Citigroup said in a presentation on its website.
It managed to do well in India despite about $100-million fraud witnessed at its branch at Gurgaon near New Delhi.
Net credit loss of India’s operation declined to 1 per cent of the total assets during the first quarter against 1.5 per cent in the same quarter a year ago. However, India’s contribution stood at 2.6 per cent to the consolidated net credit loss.
On Monday, Citigroup had reported 32 per cent plunge in its net profit for the first quarter ended March, 2011.
Net income fell to $2.99 billion during January-March quarter from $4.43 billion in the 2010 first quarter, while earnings per share fell 33 percent to 10 cents.
However, the net earnings were a sizeable improvement over the previous quarter’s earnings of $1.31 billion. According to the Citibank chief executive, Mr Vikram Pandit, March quarter earnings were a sign of the bank’s recovery from the US financial crash of 2008-2009.
“After a full year of profitability, we continue to make progress in 2011 by executing our strategy with discipline,” he had said in a statement.
“Citi Holdings’ losses continued to decrease; we are investing in our core businesses in Citicorp; our capital strength improved; and the mix of revenues reflects the diversity of our businesses and our depth in both the emerging and developed markets,” he had said.