Citi Hungry for Cross-Sales.

New York -- Consumer banking, including home mortgage activity, accounted for about 55% percent of Citigroup's third-quarter earnings, so it may be no surprise that Citigroup plans to beef up its retail banking presence.

And analysts at CreditSights are not so sure that Citi will limit itself to de novo branch expansion to pursue that goal.

This focus on the consumer market comes just a few years after some analysts had observed Citi scaling back its consumer business to focus on commercial lending and investment banking.

The change in course reflects, in part, the strength in consumer lending in recent years.

Analysts at CreditSights who met with senior Citi executives recently said that the company's reorganization of its global consumer business is designed in part to better leverage its product and geographical breadth "in order to win wallet share, especially in the lagging U.S. retail segment.

"The takeaway message is that the consumer segment's new leaders hip has a renewed focus on delivering loan products through retail branches, but the company remains well behind some of its peers (Bank of America, Wells Fargo) in realizing this model," CreditSights said in a report.