New York City ? Citigroup’s 9,000 job cuts and $14 billion in write-downs suggest that even if the worst of the credit market volatility is over, the industry is now in a conservative, cost-cutting mode.

With banks expecting more loans to go sour, people can expect tight lending standards for many months – perhaps years – to come.

“Underwriting standards have to be high. That’s the way to dampen potential losses you might face,” said chief financial officer Gary Crittenden in an interview with The Associated Press. He said that historically, deterioration in consumer credit has taken eight to 10 quarters, or at least two years, for rates of delinquency and default to recover.

Citigroup Inc. is struggling with not only a troubling lending environment in the United States, but also a dented portfolio of investments. The bank’s write-downs, plus more than $3 billion in costs related to consumers’ credit problems, led it to report a first-quarter loss Friday of $5.1 billion, or $1.02 a share.