NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Citigroup posted second-quarter earnings of $2.2 billion Monday, marking its third straight quarterly profit and beating Wall Street expectations, as the bank continued to trim its loan loss reserves thanks to improving credit trends.
Earnings for the banking giant came in at 7 cents per share, compared to a loss of 27 cents per share during the period a year ago.
Last month, Citigroup said Discover Financial Services was buying the troubled Student Loan Corporation business, in which Citi owns a big stake. Excluding charges from that sale, the New York-based bank earned $2.6 billion, or 8 cents per share.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn 6 cents for the quarter.
The provision for credit losses, the funds set aside for the allowance of bad loans, was reduced to $5.9 billion, the lowest since the second quarter of 2007, prior to the onset of the financial crisis. That's a decrease of 11% from the previous quarter and nearly 35% from a year ago.
And as loan losses, credit trends and delinquency statistics continue to improve, Citigroup chief financial officer John Gerspach said in a call with reporters that the bank will continue to release reserve funds.
The bank also continued to scale down its Citi Holdings division, which was created to house the firm's so-called "troubled assets," including its student loan business.
Citi Holdings cut its assets by $44 billion, or 9% from the prior quarter, and those assets now represent just 21% of Citigroup's total.
Meanwhile, Citicorp, which includes the bank's consumer and investment banking business, boosted its profit by 43% from a year ago to $3.5 billion.
Investment banking revenue fell in the quarter, but a 7% spike in Citicorp Latin America revenue and a 1% uptick in Asia offset declines elsewhere and helped boost Citicorp's sales by 7% compared to a year ago.
CNN Money
