Citi

The bank is keen to get started on taking the tough decisions needed to achieve net zero.

Citi has 13 Asia and EMEA consumer businesses up for sale. The first to be sold, to NAB in Australia, creates a template Citi would love to see used in later deals.

The big six US banks are releasing the loan loss reserves they built up in the pandemic. Where might this end? The answer could be surprising.

For banks across the world, the coronavirus pandemic created countless new challenges in servicing clients and many sought answers in the acceleration of their digital development. Over a number of years Citi has been working to improve its digital offerings across all its businesses – work that stood it in good stead to help retail and institutional clients tackle the new environment they faced in 2020.

It wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to say that no other investment bank can operate across the central America and Caribbean region like Citi. With its history and presence, the US bank seems to have a stranglehold on deal flow from the region and Citi’s investment banking team, led by Caribbean and central America cluster head Marcelo Gorrini, has been dominant in the awards period.

Jane Fraser, who took over as Citi’s chief executive on March 1, 2021, wasted no time in putting ESG at the top of the bank’s agenda. On her first day she announced the bank’s commitment to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

With margin requirements rising sharply, banks must do a much better job managing surpluses and shortages of collateral across all their businesses.

Banks have responded to fintech innovation in credit risk assessment by introducing more sophisticated processes for determining the financial health of trade finance customers.

The US bank’s decision to hire 2,300 new staff across its Asia wealth franchise, including 1,000 in Hong Kong alone, underlines the strength of the region and CEO Jane Fraser’s clear push in private banking.

In retreating from onshore private banking in south Asia’s largest market, Citi is following the money, as it seeks to serve the rising number of Indian families fast transferring personal wealth overseas to bigger and more stable markets they know and trust.

In comedy, timing is everything. And so, it seems, in internal communications.

Black-owned broker-dealers have largely been excluded from the mainstream of corporate debt and equity capital raising. The bulge-bracket banks are now working to correct this, inviting firms owned and staffed by racial minorities, women and veterans to lead their own deals and showcase their capabilities to corporate clients.

A $100 million World Bank bond arranged in early March by Citi crowded in funding from wealthy individuals as well as institutions for the first time. When it comes to impact investing, this is just the start.

Euromoney’s 2021 trade finance survey reflects an unprecedented year for the industry.

Citi’s new CEO Jane Fraser set out her vision statement this week. It was solid stuff, but Euromoney suggests some bolder moves for the US bank in Asia, including a secondary local listing, and the creation of a new position of co-CEO, to be installed in a region vital to the bank’s future.

Once a branch line of the banking industry, private banking and wealth management is now a driver in its own right. It offers a powerful way to grow income, valuations and returns. But the pressure is on as banks need to scale up or sell out.

The pacts will normalise relations between Israel and the UAE, but it aims to do much more. The potential for regional détente and investment across real estate, energy and technology is great.

The ICG managed price and counterparty credit risk well, but regulators see control deficiencies across the bank that they demand be addressed.

The digital dividend dominated the cash management market in 2020. Corporates responded well to those banks that digitalized the services they needed to stay afloat in the choppy waters of a global pandemic.

Citi’s Ray McGuire has definitely left the building.

Euromoney’s futurologist Mystic Maca gets on a Zoom call with next year, when markets return to a version of normality.

As the world cheered news of a potential Covid-19 vaccine in early November, important steps were being taken on equitable manufacture and distribution as well.

A new book concludes that the rules for trading EM FX and fixed income have successfully survived Covid.

The payment industry’s ability to withstand the disruption caused by the coronavirus suggests that lessons learned from previous outbreaks have served the industry well.

Private banking is a business based on personal relationships and trust – and it’s hard to truly connect with someone on Zoom. So long as the pandemic persists, this presents a substantial challenge to wealth managers, who can only grow their businesses by bonding with wealthy clients and winning new mandates.

Multi-dealer platforms may remain bullish about their prospects, but if other banks follow Citi’s lead and pull away from them, market share may continue to fall.

It seems odd that a good soldier like Mike Corbat should hand to one of his colleagues the tough task of leading Citi through the Covid battlefield.

As the world’s financial markets went into crisis in 2020, Citi showed it had the capital strength and global reach to keep its clients in business

Citi’s scale across the emerging markets is unrivalled, and its investment bankers have been successful in playing to that strength throughout the last year.

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