Citigroup Inc. posted second-quarter earnings of $2.2 billion today, marking its third straight quarterly profit and beating Wall Street expectations, as the bank continued to trim its loan loss reserves thanks to improving credit trends, CNNMoney.com reported.

Earnings for the banking giant came in at 7 cents per share, compared with a loss of 27 cents per share during the same period a year ago.

The provision for credit losses, the funds set aside for the allowance of bad loans, was reduced to $5.9 billion, a 11 percent decrease from the previous quarter and down nearly 35 percent from the same quarter last year.

The bank also continued to scale down its Citi Holdings division, which was created to house the firm’s so-called troubled assets, including its student loan business. Last month, Citigroup said Discover Financial Services was buying the Student Loan Corp. business, in which Citi Holdings owns a big stake.

Citi Holdings cut its assets by $44 billion, or 9 percent, from the prior quarter, and those assets now represent 21 percent of Citigroup’s total.

Excluding charges from that sale, the New York-based bank earned $2.6 billion, or 8 cents per share.

Meanwhile, Citicorp, which includes the bank’s consumer and investment banking business, boosted its profit to $3.5 billion.

Citigroup has been focusing on restructuring the company into a smaller, more internationally focused banking institution, and continues to make progress in that direction.