Citigroup, the world's biggest bank by revenue, reported a fourth consecutive quarterly loss after recording a further hit from the credit crunch of at least $13 billion (£7.5 billion).

The group reported a loss of $2.8 billion for the third quarter, down from a $2.2 billion profit the year before. However, the loss was smaller than the consensus analyst forecast of $3.8 billion.

Group revenues fell 23 per cent to $16.7 billion.

Citigroup, which also said it cut about 11,000 positions during the third quarter, wrote down $4.4 billion in investments, recorded $4.9 billion in credit losses and took a $3.9 billion charge to boost reserves.

Vikram Pandit, Citigroup’s chief executive, said: “While our third quarter results reflect both a difficult environment as well as continued writedowns on our legacy assets, we are making excellent progress on the parts of our business we control, including expense reduction, headcount, and balance sheet and capital management.”

“We expect these improvements will enable us to realise the full earnings power of our franchise as the economy stabilises,” he added.

It emerged this week that Citigroup is set to receive $25 billion from the US Government as part of its programme to inject $250 billion into America’s banks in return for equity stakes.

Citigroup is the third major US bank this week to report better-than-expected third quarter results.

Yesterday, JPMorgan Chase reported an 84 per cent decline in third quarter profits, to $527 million, as bad mortgages inherited through its acquisition of failed bank Bear Stearns took their toll. But the profit equates to 11 cents a share and compares favourably with the 18 cents-a-share loss that analysts had predicted.

Wells Fargo reported yesterday that its profits fell by 25 per cent to $1.64 billion for the third quarter as a $2.5 billion provision for credit losses dragged down the bottom line. It too came in ahead of analysts' expectations.

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