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The online bank and credit card provider, Egg, has announced the resignation of Chief Executive Ian Kerr.

Egg has denied that the announcement was related to the recent controversy surrounding the decision to withdraw 161,000 credit cards, impacting 7% of Egg credit card customers.

The bank, owned by Citigroup, said the customers were a poor credit risk but many of those affected insisted they paid their bills in full every month. They claimed that they were being targeted because they did not make enough money for the bank.

Unsurprisingly, this has been consistently denied by Egg.

Mr Kerr, who had run Egg since November 2006, will be replaced by Bert Pijls, Citigroup's country manager for the Czech Republic.

Labour MP Nigel Griffiths, who has led criticism of the credit card cancellations, welcomed Mr Kerr's resignation.

"Egg presided over a PR disaster, withdrawing cards from thousands of perfectly respectable customers and failing to give full and honest reasons," he said.