New York - Citigroup extended its financial losses for a fourth quarter, registering a loss of 2.8 billion dollars for the period between July and September.

The bank attributed part of its loss to nearly 10 billion dollars in writedowns from loans gone bad and securities that have lost value.

"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," said Vikram Pandit, Citigroup's chief executive officer.

"We expect these improvements will enable us to realize the full earnings power of our franchise as the economy stabilizes," he said.

One year ago, Citigroup posted a profit of 2.2 billion dollars. But in the last four quarters, it has reported a loss of more than 20 billion dollars.

Citigroup has been one of the hardest-hit financial companies in the ongoing financial crisis. It is currently laying off workers - nearly 23,000 in the first nine months of 2008 - and seeks to sell off about 20 per cent of its assets. (dpa)