Combined Citibank, Cal Fed taking shape

Kevin Rademacher

Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2003 | 11:07 a.m.

Nine months after a merger agreement was struck between Citibank and California Federal Bank, the new look of the combined company's Las Vegas operation is taking shape.

Earlier this month two Cal Fed branches in the Las Vegas area were closed and the remaining seven were re-branded as Citibank financial centers.

The shuttered branches -- 9325 W. Sahara Ave. and 9436 W. Lake Mead Blvd. -- were merged with Citibank locations less than a mile away and no employees lost jobs, said Janis Tarter, a San Francisco-based spokeswoman for Citibank.

Citibank also opened a branch in fast-growing Henderson at 10211 S. Eastern Ave. The new branch employs 10 people and offers a full line of services, including investments, mortgages and insurance.

There are no other new branches planned for Southern Nevada, Tarter said

With the recent activity, Citibank now has 12 financial centers in the Las Vegas and Henderson areas and has 130 local employees, Tarter said.

As of June 30, the last complete reporting period for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the merged bank had $5.3 billion in Nevada deposits, making it the third-largest bank in the state behind Wells Fargo and Bank of America.

Prior to the merger, Citibank ranked as the fifth-largest Nevada bank with $1.41 billion in deposits, according to the FDIC. California Federal trailed at sixth with $1 billion in deposits.

Independent of the banking business, Citibank also operates a credit card processing center in Las Vegas that has 1,878 employees.