The U.S. regulator of national banks scaled back some of the compliance obligations it had imposed on Citigroup under a 2020 enforcement action that penalized the lender for inadequate risk controls and data-management practices, the Financial Times reported.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) terminated a 2024 amendment to a consent order, which had required the bank to submit a “resource review” to the regulator related to its payment of dividends. The underlying consent order imposed in 2020 by the OCC and the Federal Reserve remains in place, the FT reported.

The 2020 enforcement action followed Citi’s erroneous $900 million transfer to creditors of cosmetics company Revlon, which sparked a lengthy legal dispute, the FT said. Regulators later amended the order in July 2024 and fined Citi about $136 million for failing to correct “long-standing” risk control and data management problems.

Citi, led by CEO Jane Fraser since 2021, framed the development as part of a broader overhaul. “Our transformation has been our number one priority,” Citi said in a statement cited by the FT, adding it is investing to modernize systems and strengthen its risk and control environment.

Citi has faced a series of operational and regulatory setbacks in recent years, including a U.S. regulator’s rejection of its “living will” in June 2024 as “deficient,” a £62-million fine from U.K. regulators over a $1.4 billion trading error, and a separate “near miss” in April 2024 involving an $81-trillion mistaken account credit that was reversed within 90 minutes, the newspaper said. 

In lieu of $81 trillion, the lender had intended to move only $280 into the account. 

Read more at the Financial Times