Credit card bonds caused $ 1.44 b loss of Citigroup

The downturn in global economy touched Citigroup Inc. It lost $1.44 billion during the third quarter. The reason - credit card debt were packaged and sold as bonds. Citigroup earned $ 169 million from selling bonds backed by credit card debt during the third quarter last year. But it didn't work this year. 

Citigroup observed the loss for the July-September period in regulatory filing late Friday. Such financial situation is expected to long till the middle of 2009. Also analysts expect delinquencies and charge-offs to grow over the next year as more customers struggle to play off debt.