City group, an American multinational banker, has agreed to sell its retail banking business in Japan to Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp or SMBC.

美国跨国银行花旗集团已同意将其日本小额银行事业部出售给三井住友银行。

SMBC is Japanese multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Tokyo.

The deal involves the sale of Citibank Japan's ATMs and 32 retail branches including 740,000 customer accounts and about 21 billion US dollars in foreign currency accounts to a trust bank subsidiary of SMBC.

It said about 1,600 Citibank Japan employees in Japan will be transferred to SMBC, one of three Japanese mega-banks.

The cost of the acquisition, which will close late next year, was not disclosed.