CITIBANK LEADS A WELCOME INVASION
"The government gave us and the other foreign banks licences on January 9. We were incorporated on the same day and had our first board meeting then. We brought in $10 million of capital on January 21, and registered with the Bank Inspectorate three says after that. From that time on, technically we were allowed to function, but I think in practice we will have started doing serious business at the beginning of March.'
So said Bo Hammerich, Citibank manager, explaining how the bank arrived in Stockholm at the beginning of this year. Hammerich is every inch a Citibanker-- bursting with nervous energy, full of enthusiasm for the aggressive role he expects to play in the Swedish market. He has been with Citibank for 15 years in New York, Paris, Brazil and now, after a spell at the Harvard Business School, in Stockholm.
Citibank is one of 12 foreign banks that are establishing themselves in Sweden. For years the government refused to allow foreign banks into the country, partly because of what Bengt Dennis, governor of the Riksbank (central bank), called "a vague feeling that it would be more difficult to operate foreign exchange controls if we had them'.