The newspaper said the bank held a board meeting in Dublin last month, and cited sources in the Irish capital as saying Citi was exploring options for office space there.

"They have been testing the Irish political and regulatory regime on a macro level," it quoted one source as saying.

Last month the UK head of Citi, which has 9,000 UK employees, said jobs in London's financial sector would move to other EU countries regardless of what deal Britain strikes on access to the EU's financial services market.

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)