Citicorp said it will close credit and charge card operations in three cities and offer 1,900 affected workers an opportunity to move to other centers.
The parent of Citibank said Tuesday that it would shut its Diners Club site in Denver and locations it bought from AT&T Universal Card in Columbus, Ga. and Salt Lake City.
The decisions stemmed from a restructuring plan announced last October to cut costs and "recognize efficiencies in the business by consolidating functions," said a spokeswoman for the bank.
The 1,900 technology and processing staff members are getting formal 60- day notices of the changes. Those who do not take new positions will get severance packages and outplacement assistance.
Of the 1,900, 1,100 work in the Universal Card business that Citicorp acquired last fall from AT&T Corp. The Salt Lake City and Columbus sites are expected to close by October and their functions distributed to several locations including the old AT&T base in Jacksonville, Fla.
The displacement of 800 working for Diners Club does not signal a change in the strategic importance of the travel and entertainment card, the Citicorp spokeswoman said.
"Diners Club has always been a key part of our business and when the announcement was made, we were looking corporatewide" in search of efficiencies.
The Denver location that will close down over the next year will have its customer service, technology, and corporate card functions integrated into sites in Jacksonville, Fla., and Nevada.
Citicorp. took a pretax charge of $889 million in the third quarter of 1997 to cover restructurings over a period of 18 months.
