Citigroup will pull its retail banking operations out of the Boston market early next year.

Citi presently has 17 Boston-area branches – six of those in Boston proper – that it will shutter in January in order to focus more on other target markets, like Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Boston ranked 18th in the market by deposit share, with average deposits per branch totaling around $155 million in Citi’s other target markets.

“As consumer behavior continues to evolve with tremendous growth in online and mobile interactions and heightened expectations of what the branch experience should be, Citibank is committed to adapting rapidly to meet our customers’ needs,” Spokesman Andrew Brent said in a statement. “We are transforming our operating model by reallocating resources to invest significantly in enhancing our digital channels and building a new branch model in our major, target markets where we have sufficient scale to best serve our customers.”

In the statement, Brent stressed that the company’s other lines of business – including municipal finance, fixed income, equities, prime finance, global custody, global fund services as well as regulatory, administrative and tax services, commercial banking and private banking – would remain in the Boston market.

“Boston remains an important market for Citi as we currently provide financial services for some of Boston’s largest employers, middle market businesses, local affordable housing developments and the Boston School District,” he said. “We maintain sales personnel, business management and relationship managers on the ground to manage several of the key businesses that Citi’s Institutional Clients Group offers in the Boston area.”

Brent said that the closures would have no impact on the company’s other businesses and said that the company’s private banking group would maintain its staff of 20 in Boston. He also said that Citi’s commercial banking group had continued to grow in the Boston area.