CitiFinancial Statement On Lost Data Tapes

              

New York, June 6, 2005 - CitiFinancial has begun mailing letters to 3.9 million CitiFinancial Branch Network customers whose personal information was on computer tapes that were lost by UPS while in transit to a credit bureau.  The tapes contained information about CitiFinancial branch network customers in the United States as well as customers with closed accounts from CitiFinancial Retail Services.  The tapes did not contain any customer information from CitiFinancial Auto, CitiFinancial Mortgage or any other Citigroup business.  CitiFinancial said it had no reason to believe that this information has been used inappropriately, nor has it received any reports of unauthorized activity.  Furthermore, there was no information on these tapes relating to customers of the CitiFinancial network operations in Canada or Puerto Rico.

"We deeply regret this incident, which occurred in spite of the enhanced security procedures we require of our couriers," said Kevin Kessinger, Executive Vice President of Citigroup's Global Consumer Group and President of Consumer Finance North America.  "There is little risk of the accounts being compromised because customers have already received their loans, and no additional credit may be obtained from CitiFinancial without prior approval of our customers, either by initiating a new application or by providing positive proof of identification.  Beginning in July, this data will be sent electronically in encrypted form."

"We are making every effort to ensure that our customers are aware of what we are doing and what we suggest they do to protect their identity.  We are committed to ensuring that our customers have the support they need to monitor their credit and know how to respond should they identify any problems," concluded Mr. Kessinger.

"Customer security is of paramount importance to Citigroup," said Debby Hopkins, Chief Operations and Technology Office of Citigroup.  "While this incident affects the customers of only one of our businesses, we put significant effort into assuring that our data protection procedures meet and exceed industry standards at all of our businesses, and are reviewing the issues here as part of this ongoing effort."

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