Citigroup's Australian business has a mandate from its parent to invest in growing its retail and wholesale operations, Citigroup Pty Ltd chairman Nick Greiner said yesterday.Presenting the local group's 2010 results, Greiner said that Citi in Australia had hit a "sweet spot", with an assurance of consistent support for its investment plans. Greiner said: "In the GFC, Citi was looking to survive and had to review what it was going to do going forward. We are in the post-GFC world now, and the investment we have been making will continue."In the retail side of the business that investment is in new branches - two new ones opened last year and two more are planned for this year. Citi has also launched its first advertising campaign for some time and has increased its branded ATM fleet from nine to 150 (mainly by attaching its brand to machines operated by Customers Limited).Citi has suffered from both weak brand recognition and low customer satisfaction in recent times. It aims to turn this around with a bigger branch and ATM footprint, and stronger branding.The retail bank made a pre-tax profit of A$418 million in the year to December - an increase of 69 per cent over the previous corresponding period.  Among the highlights was an increase in credit card market share from 9.9 to 10.8 per cent. Citibank Australia chief executive Roy Gori said that if the rate of growth in the cards' business continues Citibank will overtake NAB as the country's fourth-largest card issuer.Citibank is very strong in premium cards (platinum and above), where it has a 35 per cent share. Gori said last year's launch of Citibank Select, its top-of-the-range card, has been a success.The bank has had strong retail deposit flows - up 34 per cent last year. Part of those flows came through its partner, Virgin Money, but Gori said the majority of the inflows came though the bank's own distribution channels.The bank reported a 29 per cent increase in the number of Citigold customer accounts. Citigold is its high-end transaction and investment account, aimed at customers with cross-border and other sophisticated banking needs.The bank has been weak in mortgage sales, with its book shrinking 25 per cent over the past two years. Gori said this was largely driven by the bank, not the market, because of concerns about the cost of funds and a decision to get out of the commercial mortgage market. He said the bank was ready to grow in mortgages this year.He said the investment was starting to show some results. On internal measures of customer satisfaction (which use a bigger sample than external surveys such as Roy Morgan) the results for 2010 showed an average 80 per cent of customers gave the bank a "satisfied" or "very satisfied" rating. By the end of the year that number had risen to 83 per cent.As a result of more advertising and other branding activity last year, unaided awareness amongst the target market increased from 15 to 26