(SINGAPORE) Citigroup is looking to Asia and Latin America for most of its growth in the next few years, its chief financial officer John Gerspach said this week.

Mr Gerspach, who was appointed as CFO last July, said the bank had already begun to make new investments in the two regions, although it is still grappling with the aftershocks of the financial crisis in developed markets in the United States and Western Europe.

In January last year, Citi separated itself into two operating units as a precursor to shedding some of its assets and shrinking its massive balance sheet.

The first, Citicorp, contained the group's core retail, commercial and investment banking operations, as well as its global transaction services, or payments processing, business.

The other, Citi Holdings, contained brokerage and asset-management businesses as well as other non-core assets.

So far, Citi has made 'good progress' selling off the assets in Citi Holdings, Mr Gerspach said.

'We are left with about US$547 billion of assets in Citi Holdings at the end of 2009. That's down 40 per cent of where Citi Holdings was at its peak.'

Citicorp, meanwhile, 'would have been profitable straight through the financial crisis', he said. In 2009, the operating unit generated US$14.7 billion in net income for the group, up from US$6.1 billion in 2008.

'We are definitely looking for most of the growth in Citicorp over the next couple of years to come from the developing markets,' he said. 'These are markets where, at least in Asia and Latin America, we can see some sign that the economies have turned.'

In the fourth quarter of last year, 'Asia and Latin America combined to produce approximately 85 per cent of the net income that we had in Citicorp', he added. 'So you can already see the importance of Asia and Latin America to the future of Citicorp.'

For the whole of 2009, Asia-Pacific contributed about US$4.5 billion, or some 30 per cent, of Citicorp's net income and nearly US$14 billion, or 23 per cent, of its revenues worldwide.

'We expect Asia to be one of the engines of growth. We will continue to grow our North America and Western Europe business, but it will not grow as fast, and we won't be doing the same level of investment in those geographies as we will be in Asia.'

But 'I don't see us advancing into new markets in the near term', he said. 'We have such an extensive Asia franchise as it is, it's a little difficult to think that we would have to expand to a brand new market.'

'The focus will be on organic growth at this point. We will look at inorganic opportunities as they arise as we have done in the last decade.'