Citigroup announced that it intends to exit its consumer business in Egypt, along with its businesses in other 10 countries. The American banking and financial services company stated that this comes as part of the company's strategic actions to accelerate the transformation of Global Consumer Banking (GCB). It said that these steps will focus on the markets that have the "greatest scale and growth potential". "This strategic action is consistent with Citi's global strategy of allocating resources to higher return opportunities," said General Manager of Citi Egypt Nadir Shaikh. "Egypt is an important market for Citi which will continue to serve clients of its institutional businesses." "During this time, there will be no change in the way Citi serves its consumer banking customers. Consumer operations, including all branches and offices, will continue to operate as they do today," Shaikh added. He also said that Citi's Institutional Clients Group will continue to operate in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions, including Egypt. Citigroup said that the affected businesses include consumer franchises in Costa Rica, Czech Republic, El Salvador, Guam, Guatemala, Hungary, Japan, Nicaragua, Panama and Peru, and the consumer finance business in Korea. The company announced earlier this week that its net income during the third quarter (Q3) of 2014 recorded $3.4bn. The American company's income during the same period of 2013 was some $3.2bn. Compared to Q3 2013, the company's revenues witnessed a significant surge, climbing from $17.9bn to $19.6bn. "Our consumer bank and institutional business each had solid performance during the quarter and generated stronger revenues both sequentially and year-on-year," said Chief Executive Officer of Citi Michael Corbat. "The revenue improvement was evident across regions and products." "With Citi Holdings again turning a profit and the utilisation of additional deferred tax assets, we again demonstrated progress against two execution priorities and increased our capital base," Corbat added.
