Aug. 25--Financial services giant Citi said Monday that it had dramatically stepped up its foreclosure prevention efforts in California -- enabling 11,500 mortgage holders to remain in their homes in this year's second quarter.

That figure is more than double the 5,000 California mortgage holders who received such assistance in the second quarter of 2008.

Nationwide, 108,000 Citibank customers avoided potential foreclosure in the second quarter of 2009, according to company officials.

Citi said the number of home owners avoiding foreclosure was nearly 30 percent higher than in the first quarter of the year; the increase was more than 30 percent in California.

Major lenders such as Citibank have been under intense public and political pressure to keep more of their customers in their homes. This pressure has been heightened by the fact that Citibank and other large institutions have received billions of dollars in taxpayer funding.

Citi is currently one-third owned by the federal government.

The company contacted reporters this week to tout its progress.

"Citi is committed to helping keep homeowners in their homes and stay in their homes. I think lots of progress has been made over the past six months," Rebecca Macieira-Kaufmann, president of Citibank California, said in a phone interview set up by the company.

Since 2007, Citi said it has helped 625,000 homeowners through mortgage modifications. Citi put the original value of those homes at more than $67 billion.

Macieira-Kaufmann singled out two Citi foreclosure-prevention programs: one that spots at-risk mortgages and works with homeowners "even before they enter into delinquencies," and a homeowner unemployment initiative that works with jobless mortgage holders.

She also cited the federal Home Affordable Modification Program -- implemented through CitiMortgage -- which provides funds to enable 7 million to 9 million homeowners modify their home loans and reduce their monthly mortgage payments. The program combines taxpayer and lender money to lower mortgage payments to 31 percent of a borrower's income.

Macieira-Kaufmann said only 2 percent of all loans serviced by Citi were modified to avoid foreclosure or were foreclosed on during the second quarter. In California, she said, that figure was less than 2 percent.

She added, however, that "we're not out of the woods yet" in California, citing the state's budget struggles and high unemployment.

Last year, public advocacy groups criticized lenders for not disclosing information comparing loan modifications and mortgage foreclosures.

On Monday, Citi contended that it "is alone in the industry in providing an extensive, quarterly data report detailing the performance of its consumer mortgage lending businesses, which includes loans Citi both owns and services."

New York-based Citi is one of the world's largest financial services companies, with about 200 million customer accounts. It operates in more than 140 countries. The company said its CitiMortgage arm is the fourth-largest mortgage servicer in the United States.

On Monday, CitiMortgage CEO Sanjiv Dasnoted that "many Americans are still struggling."

The same might be said of Citi. David Trone, who leads a group of bank analysts at Fox-Pitt Kelton, was quoted by the New York Times on Monday as saying that Citi could absorb an additional $68.6 billion in additionalloan losses through 2010.

Even so, Citi shares were up 12 cents, or 2.5 percent, to close at $4.82 on Monday on the New York Stock Exchange.

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