Citigroup has hired Terri Dial, the boss of Lloyds TSB's retail bank, to run its flagging US consumer business.

Ms Dial will replace Steven Freiberg at the helm of US consumer operations.

Lloyds TSB told the London Stock Exchange this morning that the 58-year-old would stay with the UK bank "for a period to ensure an orderly transition of her duties". Lloyds TSB said that it had started a global search for her replacement.

Ms Dial, who is nicknamed "the human cyclone", will become global head of consumer strategy, but the California native’s main task will be to improve US retail banking and consumer finance.

Mr Freiberg, who used to run Citigroup's North American credit card business, will take over the bank's card business worldwide.

Ms Dial started her banking career as a teller at Wells Fargo and worked her way up to vice-president, helping to build the group into one of America's most successful banks.

She was headhunted by Eric Daniels, who was American chief executive of Lloyds, in 2005 to run the bank's 2,000-branch network business serving 16 million customers.

She also served on the board of the bank. Mr Daniels said: "Terri has made a tremendous contribution to the Lloyds TSB group ... She leaves our retail business in excellent shape with a first class senior management team".

Her appointment by Citigroup is the latest in a series of senior reshuffles under Vikram Pandit, who replaced Charles Prince after he was ousted as chief executive in December.

Mr Pandit has been carrying out a wholesale review of the bank to cut costs, grow revenues and help to boost the bank's share price, which has tumbled by more than half in the past year.

The crisis has led the bank to seek $30 billion (£15 billion) in emergency cash injections from several sovereign wealth funds, and analysts say that the bank may be forced to seek more.

It has cut more than 6,000 jobs and further layoffs are expected.

The Wall Street Journal said today that Mr Pandit is also set to announce a shake-up of Citigroup's structure.

He plans to create Asia and Europe divisions, consisting of consumer and corporate banking operations in the respective regions.

Ajay Banga, who runs international consumer operations, would lead the Asia unit but it is unclear who would lead the Europe unit, the paper reported.

Citigroup lost $9.83 billion in the fourth quarter, hit by $18.1 billion of write-downs and losses tied to sub-prime mortgages.

Its US consumer business was responsible for $432 million of the loss and its full year profit fell by 51 per cent to $4.11 billion.

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