Citigroup is planning to resuscitate its retail banking presence in Europe, as one of the biggest victims of the global financial crisis seeks to move beyond a period of enforced shrinkage and back into a mode of targeted growth.

Citi’s western European -operations – which comprise branch networks in the UK, Spain, Greece and Belgium – are being forcibly wound down under the terms of the US -government bail-out. Those terms split the group into an ongoing “Citicorp” and a mixed bag of non-core “Citi Holdings” assets which must be sold.

But, according to people close to the bank, Citi is determined to rebuild a slim network of flagship outlets – mimicking the store model employed by Apple, the technology group – to underpin an operation in key parts of western Europe.