Private bank revenues at Citigroup rose in the fourth quarter of 2012 by 12 per cent to $578 million from a year before, the US firm said as the parent firm reported Q4 net income of $1.2 billion on revenues of $18.2 billion.

The bank’s overall net income for the final three months of 2012 compared to net income of $956 million, or $0.31 per diluted share, on revenues of $17.2 billion for the fourth quarter of 2011, it said in a statement today.

“Our bottom line earnings reflect an environment that remains challenging – with businesses working through issues like spread compression and regulatory changes – as well as the costs of putting legacy issues behind us. However, we did make progress on several fronts,” said Michael Corbat, chief executive of Citigroup.

“At 8.7 per cent, we reached the target for our year-end Basel III Tier 1 Common ratio. We continue to have a very liquid balance sheet and a high-quality credit portfolio in our core businesses,” said Corbat, who took over from previous CEO Vikram Pandit last year after the latter stepped down.

Citigroup’s net income for the whole of 2012 was $7.5 billion on revenues of $70.2 billion, compared to net income of $11.1 billion on revenues of $78.4 billion for the full year 2011.

The New York-listed banking group gave few other details on the performance of its private banking arm.