[ by Melanie Gretchen ] Citigroup joins the growing trend of global banks that seeking to meet stricter capital requirements before they're scheduled in July to go into effect.  Citi's latest action was the sale of its 9.9% holding in India's biggest mortgage lender, Housing Development Finance for $1.9 billion. A Growing Trend. Following the rebound in share prices, analysts expect global banks, as well as buyout firms, to step up sales of their holdings in Asian companies over the next few months.  "With tighter capital requirements and more problems back home, it seems reasonable that some of these banks are thinking about selling their Asian investments at a profit," said Jeff Yeh, CIO at Capital Investment Trust in Taipei. Foreign Holdings. Major foreign bank holdings in Asia include HSBC's 19.9% stake in China's Bank of Communications and Dutch bank and insurance group ING's 26% holding in TMB Bank in Thailand.  Citi itself owns 20% of China's unlisted Guangdong Development Bank, which was reported to have been planning a $4 billion IPO last year. Beginning 2013, banks across the world will be required to use a common format for disclosing the size and quality of their capital safety buffers to help reassure investors they are stable. Recent Sales. Citi's sale of its holding in HDFC is the biggest share sale in the Indian market since April last year, according to Reuters.  It follows the sale of stakes in other Indian financial firms by international investors including U.S. private equity firm Carlyle Group and Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings. Temasek, Carlyle, and Warburg Pincus raised $740 million by paring their stakes in financial companies, including HDFC, in 3 separate deals earlier this month.  Bank of America made an after-tax profit of $1.8 billion in November from its sale of shares in China Construction Bank. The sales have coincided with a sharp rise in the share prices of Indian financial companies, which would be among the main beneficiaries of expected interest rate cuts by the Reserve Bank of India later in the year.  To date, India's stock market has risen about 16% so far this year. MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan has risen 14% in the same period. For further details, go to [CNBC, 3/1/12].