Citi positioned to repay TARP: Parsons to CNBC

Citigroup Inc is in a position to repay TARP, the bank's chairman, Dick Parsons, told cable television network CNBC on Wednesday.

Parsons told CNBC that Citigroup was in talks with regulators about repaying its $45 billion bailout from the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program.

We believe Citigroup is in a position to repay the TARP money, but there is an active discussion we have to have with regulators... said Parsons, who was at New York Governor David Paterson's speech on the economy on Wednesday at the Museum of American Finance.

Citi spokesman Jon Diat declined to comment.

Reuters reported on Monday that Citigroup and the U.S. government were disagreeing over how much the bank should raise to repay taxpayers, according to people briefed on the matter. The people said talks could take weeks or months.

Bank of America Corp sold $19.3 billion of shares last week and today announced it had completed repaying its $45 billion in government money borrowed through TARP. In June, several major banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc , JPMorgan Chase & Co and Morgan Stanley paid back their bailouts.

Exiting TARP would allow Citigroup to get out from under the thumb of the U.S. government's pay czar, who has the authority to rule on how the bank pays its employees.

(Reporting by Steve Eder and Dan Wilchins, editing by Leslie Gevirtz and Gerald E. McCormick)