NEW YORK (AFP) – Citigroup and Wells Fargo announced Wednesday they had repaid a combined 45 billion dollars to the US government from a massive program to bail out the banking system.

Citi said it repurchased 20 billion dollars in preferred shares from a US Treasury investment in the company through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a massive 700 billion dollar effort to stabilize the financial system launched in 2008.

Wells Fargo said separately it redeemed the 25 billion dollars in preferred stock issued to the US Treasury, and had paid dividends of 131.9 million dollars.

Wells Fargo said the total dividends paid to the US Treasury for the shares amounted to 1.441 billion dollars.

"With repayment of the TARP investment, we can intensify our focus on what we do best: helping consumers and businesses achieve financial success," said John Stumpf, president and chief executive at Wells Fargo.

"We thank the US government and taxpayers for their support of our financial system at a critical time for our nation."

Citi, the largest recipient among banks of US bailout funds, said the government also cancelled additional state guarantees in a so-called loss-sharing agreement.

Citi, kept afloat by a series of state rescues during the financial crisis, sold some 20.5 billion dollars in new securities under the plan to replace the US government capital.

But after a lukewarm response to the share offering, the government scrapped plans to sell its common shares. Officials said the government, which holds a large stake in Citi, would likely sell those shares in 2010.

The rescue of Citigroup was the most extensive for the US banks hit by the financial crisis last year.

The government injected a total of 45 billion dollars in the firm, once the world's biggest banking group. It converted a portion of that to common stock earlier this year in exchange for a stake of around 34 percent in Citi.