NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Citigroup (C) - Get Report are higher by 4.09% to $54.46 in mid-morning trading Thursday, after the bank announced it is raising its quarterly dividend to 5 cents, along with a stock repurchase program of up to $7.8 billion during the five quarters starting in the second quarter of 2015.

Late yesterday, Citi's plans to return capital to shareholders got the cleanest approval from the Federal Reserve among top banks after passing the regulator's annual stress tests, Reuters reports.

The quarterly dividend is a big jump from last year when Citigroup issued a 1 cent quarterly dividend after failing the stress test.

Citi CEO Michael Corbat delayed his retirement to oversee this year's submission, after the Fed found the bank's processes inadequate last year, Bloomberg reports.

New York City-based Citigroup is a financial services holding company engaged in providing financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services and wealth management to consumers, corporations, governments and institutions.

Insight from TheStreet's Research Team:

Jim Cramer commented on Citigroup in a recent post on RealMoneyPro.com. Here is what Cramer had to say about the stock:

You would have thought that the Federal Reserve fired a starting pistol last night when it announced that 25 banks had been okayed to return capital to shareholders. One after another announced some fairly bountiful dividend boosts and share buybacks. We are nowhere near where we were in terms of the sizes of dividends or share counts -- meaning there's a ton of shares out there, and not nearly as much going to shareholders in terms of dividends as there were before the great recession. But it is a pleasant sight to see executives tripping over each other to reward long-suffering shareholders with some excellent bounty.

I am particularly impressed by the job that Mike Corbatt's doing at Citigroup (C), as he truly stuck his neck betting that he would get the approval the bank now richly deserves, and now that bank stock can start working its way back to some semblance of where it was before the downturn.

- Jim Cramer, 'Cramer: Here's an Encouraging Trend,' originally published 3/12/2015 on RealMoneyPro.com.

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Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates CITIGROUP INC as a Hold with a ratings score of C+. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:

"We rate CITIGROUP INC (C) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed, some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its good cash flow from operations and increase in stock price during the past year. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including deteriorating net income, disappointing return on equity and poor profit margins." You can view the full analysis from the report here: C Ratings Report