Citibank

Three law firms representing a Texas woman have sued Citibank, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from the No. 2 U.S. credit card issuer, which it accuses of tricking consumers into paying bloated fees for late payments. The lawsuit seeks class-action status, alleging that Citibank deliberately adopted "hyper-technical and misleading payment crediting guidelines" to make it difficult for consumers to avoid fees for late payments, according to court documents.

Allied Irish Banks sued Bank of America Corp. and Citibank, alleging they helped a former currency trader from an AIB unit hide more than $691 million in investment losses. Allied Irish is seeking $500 million in compensatory damages as well as punitive damages, according to its complaint filed in federal court in New York. The case concerns BofA's and Citibank's alleged involvement with John Rusnak, a trader at Allfirst Bank.

Citibank began a service Monday that allows Vietnamese-Americans in California to transfer money directly to relatives in Vietnam. The program, which restricts transfers to $300 for each family every three months, is the first such service provided by a major U.S. bank since the end of the Vietnam War.

Doris A. Stokes applied for a Visa credit card from Citibank over the telephone a few weeks ago. When a Citibank employee asked Stokes if she wanted a second card for another family member, she replied, "Maybe later." Her shiny new Citibank Visa card arrived at Stokes' Los Angeles home this week. So did one for Maube Later.

From a computer terminal in his apartment in St. Petersburg, Russia, a Russian software engineer broke into a Citibank computer system in New York and with several accomplices stole more than $10 million by wiring it to accounts around the world, according to court documents and the U.S. attorney's office. Citibank said all but $400,000 of the stolen funds have been recovered.

Citibank, the nation's largest bank, will soon begin a service for Vietnamese-Americans in California to transfer money directly for relatives living in Vietnam or for humanitarian purposes. The program, restricted to transfers of $300 per family every three months, is considered the first such service provided by a major U.S. bank since the end of the Vietnam War. The Citibank program is scheduled for introduction in Southern California next month.

Citibank this week launched its own online person-to-person payment system in an attempt to rival popular services such as PayPal. The new system, called C2it, allows people to transfer funds to others by using the Internet. Such services have proved popular among online auction users, small businesses that don't accept credit cards and people who want to pay bills to vendors that can't receive other electronic payments.

Brazil and Citibank announced Wednesday that a historic $82-billion debt restructuring package has been completed that will allow the nation to start drawing funds by the middle of the month. The package should enable Brazil to bring back-interest payments to commercial banks up to date and, in turn, boost U.S. commercial banks' fourth-quarter earnings.

Citibank, which started a money transfer service to Vietnam on Monday, said it is developing a service for customers to send checks and application forms to wire money to friends and relatives in Vietnam. The mail-in service will accommodate people who live far from Citibank branch offices, said Nancy Goodman, vice president in charge of the Vietnam program at the nation's largest bank. New York-based Citibank has requested permission from the Office of Foreign Asset Control at the U.S.

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that Citibank did not need approval from the Federal Reserve Board to buy a municipal bond insurance subsidiary. The ruling was seen as a victory for the banking industry, which has argued that the requirement for Fed approval in such a case represents an unnecessary layer of regulation. "The significance obviously goes well beyond whether Citibank can own an insurance subsidiary," said Stephen Verdier, an attorney with the Independent Bankers Assn.