A robust growth in corporate business helped Citigroup India's net profit grow 39 per cent to Rs 1,566 crore in 2006-07 from Rs 1,127 crore a year earlier.

Sanjay Nayar, CEO of Citigroup India, said, "Consumer banking and corporate banking contributed equally to the total revenues, but about 70 per cent of the profits came from corporate business, which included investment banking activities and capital markets."

Of the group's net profit, about Rs 900 crore was contributed by the bank's operations, which grew 33 per cent from Rs 700 crore a year earlier.

The net profit from Citigroup India's global markets business was Rs 265 crore.

The group's consumer lending arm, CitiFinancial, posted 35 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 222 crore in 2006-07. Revenues for 2006-07 also rose 39 per cent to Rs 7,315 crore from Rs 5,270 crore a year earlier.

The group's total assets in India grew to Rs 84,469 crore up 46 per cent from Rs 57,983 crore a year earlier.

"There has been a 25 basis points compression in interest margins which has been offset by growth in fee-based income," said Nayar.

"The equity capital market has grown significantly. The growth in debt capital market has been more with Indian corporates going global. This is expected to keep growing with a lot more structured financing like credit derivatives coming in and Indian corporates continuing to acquire companies abroad," said Nayar. Citigroup financed $15-16 billion of Indian merger and acquisition deals abroad in 2006-07.

"The bank is in hyper mode of client acquisition. We are looking at bringing new multinational clients from Europe, US, Korea and Japan to India," said Nayar.

Citigroup's advances grew 34 per cent to Rs 32,860 crore at the end of March 2007 largely owing to growth in mortgage financing, personal loans, corporate and consumer businesses. Its deposits posted a 36 per cent growth.

Citigroup's mortgage finance business grew 50 per cent in 2006-07, while its unsecured loan portfolio increased 48 per cent. Credit card business grew 50 per cent, with 60 per cent of the incremental portfolio coming from partnerships.

The bank's credit card base stood at 3.3 million at the end of March 2007, adding 7,50,00 over 2006-07 alone. CitiFinancial added 150 branches during the year, taking its total number of branches to 450. Citibank has 39 branches.

The group increased its capital by $800 million (Rs 3,000 crore) in 2006-07, of which $456 was out of retained profits and $400 million was through fresh capital infusion. The group added 1.5 million customers in 2006-07 taking its customer base to 7.25 million, including 2.2 million customers of Citifinancial.

"We are looking to build new areas going forward. We are putting together a business plan for financial inclusion, with focus on direct microfinance, to use proprietary capital for distressed assets and opportunities fro growth capital, wealth management, and also invest and grow equity and debt capital platform," said Nayar.