NEW YORK — Citigroup named a veteran retail banker yesterday to head its North American consumer banking unit, splitting it off from its credit-card business as Citi struggles to become profitable again after suffering its biggest quarterly loss in its 196-year history.

Teresa Dial has overseen U.K. consumer banking for London-based Lloyds TSB since 2005.

The latest move is the biggest sign yet that CEO Vikram Pandit, appointed in December, wants to fix Citi's major parts rather than sell them off to raise cash — at least for now.

It also addresses concerns over what steps Pandit would take to attract more consumers to Citi's retail banking unit.

Citi's worst problems are in its investment banking segment, which made huge losing bets on the mortgage industry. But its bread-and-butter business of lending to and collecting deposits from average people also has been underwhelming shareholders.

Citi in recent years has lost customers to rival banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wachovia Corp.

The quality of service at Citigroup branches has "room for improvement," said Marino Marin, managing director at the boutique investment bank Gruppo, Levey & Co. "They need to regain the trust of the customer."

Overall, the changes point to an effort to decentralize management at the sprawling New York-based company. And, as Deutsche Bank analyst Mike Mayo wrote, they appear to rule out either a more radical restructuring, or the sale of a major business or geographic region.

Most industry experts have been cautiously optimistic about Pandit's incremental moves.

"He's not selling Citigroup in pieces, but he's dividing Citigroup into pieces to measure them better and manage them better," Marin said.