In addition to a quarterly and annual decline in home lending, Citigroup Inc. reduced its mortgage servicing portfolio and residential investments.
Before deducting income taxes, continuing operations at Citi brought in $5.1 billion during the three-month period that ended on Dec. 31, 2016.
The New York-based company delivered the details, along with other financial and operational data, in its fourth-quarter 2016 earnings report.
Earnings eased from $5.6 billion earned in the previous quarter but came in stronger than $4.8 billion in the same quarter during 2015.
During the final three months of 2016, Citi originated $5.6 billion in residential loans. Mortgage production weakened from $6.5 billion in the third quarter and $6.2 billion in the fourth-quarter 2015.
Based on salable mortgage rate locks, which fell to $2.6 billion in the fourth-quarter 2016 from $3.9 billion three months earlier, first-quarter 2017 home lending is likely sliding further.
Full-year originations came to
$24.0 billion, less then the $29.5 billion in 2015 home lending.
Citi serviced
$161.2 billion in mortgages for third parties as of the most-recent date. The servicing portfolio shrunk from $166.2 billion as of Sept. 30, 2016, and $193.5 billion as of Dec. 31, 2015.
The servicing portfolio included $143.2 billion in loans serviced by the retail banking unit and $18.0 billion serviced by Citi Holdings.
Residential assets were reduced to $72.6 billion from $74.9 billion at the close of the third quarter. At the end of the prior year, this group of assets totaled $79.7 billion.
The Dec. 31, 2016. residential total consisted of $44.2 billion in real estate lending assets held by the consumer banking group, $13.4 billion in residential first mortgages owned by Citi Holdings and $15.0 billion in home-equity loans owned by Citi Holdings.
Mortgage delinquency of at least 30 days on non-government loans owned by the consumer banking division was reduced to 0.72 percent as of the end of last year from 0.84 percent as of the end of the third-quarter 2016. Performance also improved from the end of 2015, when the rate was 0.75 percent.
Delinquency on Citi Holdings’ mortgages climbed to 4.96 percent from 4.54 percent at the end of September 2016 and 4.36 percent at the end of 2015.
Citigroup Chief Executive Officer Michael Corbat noted in the report that Citi Holdings’ results will no longer be separately reported.
Headcount was trimmed to 219,000 people from 220,000 as of Sept. 30, 2016. Staffing has diminished from 231,000 as of year-end 2015.
Citi finished last year with 723 North American consumer banking branches, four fewer than as of the close of the third quarter.
Another 251 North American branches were operated by Citi Holdings, eight fewer than the previous quarter.
