Citi to axe 10,000 jobs; to raise credit card rates

Vikram Pandit-led Citigroup, the world's largest bank, will hand out pink slips to at least 10,000 employees beginning this week and is also planning to raise its credit card interest rates as part of plans to return to profitability, a report said today.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Citigroup is embarking on "another huge round of layoffs and is raising interest rates on millions of credit card customers" as part of its push to become profitable again.

The fresh measures follow net losses of more than $20 billion over the past year and the subsequent efforts by Pandit, who became Citigroup's CEO late last year, to stabilise the financial giant, the report added.

"Starting this week, Citigroup is handing out pink slips to at least 10,000 employees...," the Journal reported.

In October, Citigroup reported a net loss of $2.8 billion for the third quarter and said that its headcount was cut down by about 11,000 employees during the period.

In the first three quarters of this year, Citigroup cut down its workforce by about 23,000 persons.

Another report in the New York Times said that worst may be yet to come for Citi despite a year of losses, months of share price plunge and a $25 billion government help.

The company's share price have lost nearly two-third of its value so far this year and figures among the top losers on the Dow Jones Industrial Average index.

The New York Times report quoted unnamed Citi executives as saying that the bank has announced plans to cut 40,100 jobs as of the third quarter and "still needs to hand out pink slips to 9,100 workers to meet its goals and bankers are bracing for much of the bad news to arrive early next week."