As a step ahead towards firming its foothold in the Indian banking industry, Citibank plans to infuse a "substantial amount" of capital into its Indian banking operations by next month, a top banking official said.

"We plan to infuse a substantial amount of capital into our Indian operations by March. This will equip us in a better way to go ahead with our business expansion here," he said.

It is expected that the fresh capital infusion could be above Rs 750 crore and can even go up to Rs 1,000 crore.

Citigroup is the largest single foreign direct investor in the Indian financial services industry and has so far infused USD 3.1 billion in India.

The official also said that of the total amount invested, the banking wing of the unit has received USD 2.4 billion.

The additional capital coming to the banking arm will be used as a tool for business expansion in India. With this, the bank would gear up to fight its very strong competitors in the industry under the names of Standard Chartered Bank and HSBC amongst foreign players and also not to forget the domestic giants.

The official also quoted that the bank has been continuously reducing its dependence on unsecured loans mainly personal and credit card advances, as part of its business strategy.

"The strategy is to reduce the size of our unsecured loan book in the changed market conditions. This process will continue as we move ahead," the official said.

The employee base of Citibank in India ranges to 10,000. It caters to about 1500 large corporates and multinationals.

It also serves 2,500 small and medium enterprises clients and has a retail customer base of over 70 lakhs.

Its retail network consists of 42 branches across 28 cities of the country. It also has over 450 ATMs in its cart.

It globally operates in over 100 countries.