Citi

The US bank’s Asia chief executive and former global head of financial institutions group talks to Euromoney about his ambitions in digital, wealth and transaction banking, and about the bank’s future as a leader of both global and local change.

JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon indicated that trading revenues could fall by 50% from their current elevated levels, but the boom has already helped to offset Covid-related loan provisions.

“This pandemic will change a lot of things in terms of how people approach crises in the future,” Martin Mugambi, Citi’s chief executive for Kenya and east Africa, tells Euromoney.

Saudi Arabia’s Al-Rajhi is named the region's best bank in this year’s Euromoney Awards for Excellence.

Equity Bank takes the region's best bank accolade in this year's Euromoney Awards for Excellence.

Citi has the largest presence of any global bank in Africa – active in over 40 countries, with offices in 16 of those. The bank excels at capacity building and innovation, working with a vast array of partnerships with government, government agencies, fintechs, local financial institutions, consumer goods companies, social enterprises and nonprofits.

UniCredit is the region’s best bank in this year’s Euromoney Awards for Excellence.

Income, racial and gender inequality have been at the top of the news agenda for months. The financial sector now needs to go beyond programmes, initiatives and box-ticking and embed diversity and inclusion into all it does.

With Africa and the world expected to enter a protracted period of low growth, more companies will need to restructure and M&A will become a more dominant trend in the region. Over the last 12 months, Citi has demonstrated its expertise in these fields in Africa and it is Euromoney’s best bank for advisory in Africa this year.

Citi worked hard to mitigate the effects of the pandemic throughout central and Latin America and, given its history and geographical spread throughout the region, its impact was widespread.

The US’s PNC Financial Services and Royal Bank of Canada win the best bank accolades in their respective countries in this year’s Euromoney Awards for Excellence.

Another brisk year of M&A deal flow in CEE produced a clear winner on the advisory side. The best bank for advisory, Citi, dominated Dealogic’s league tables for the 12 months to the end of March, acting on 17 deals worth $17.7 billion, versus just $9.5 billion for its nearest rival.

Quantity was never in doubt with Citi – every year, its capital markets team churn out the deals. When it adds quality to the mix, and an ability to innovate, it’s unbeatable.

It isn’t easy being a very big bank with a very big presence in very big markets. Citi is a big financial institution present in virtually every large Asian economy. You don’t get to be this size and to last this long without an innate ability to react smartly and nimbly to systemic threats.

As of late June 2020, Citi, together with its charitable Citi Foundation, had committed some $100 million to Covid-19 relief efforts. While the targets of its aid are varied, the bank has made a special focus on supporting people and communities of colour, recognizing the disproportionate impact the pandemic has had on these communities.

As the Middle East enters a new phase of development, one in which governments can no longer rely on endless petrodollars and in which economies built on global trade and travel will have to adapt to survive, it will need banks with outstanding M&A and advisory capabilities. Citi is such a bank.

No investment bank has a greater reach in central America and the Caribbean region than Citi.

When a big US bank joins its peers around the world under an umbrella of responsible banking, it lifts the entire responsibility agenda – and this is exactly what Citi has done as an early signatory to the Principles of Responsible Banking (PRB) of the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative.

DBS reaffirms its best bank status in the region in this year’s Euromoney Awards for Excellence.

Just like the global financial crisis, Australia is emerging from Covid-19 more strongly than the rest of the developed world. Investment banks here have never been busier, raising huge sums of equity from one of the world’s largest asset pools. In the first of a two-part series on Australian investment banking, we look at the work that came out of a global pandemic.

Everyone is hungry for data to help navigate the coronavirus crisis, but thorny questions remain about consent and privacy.

Some parts of US investment bank earnings in the first quarter of the year looked more like boom than bust as record trading and debt issuance helped offset weakness elsewhere. Now the banks are building reserves to prepare for coming out of lockdown

Citi’s chief executive for Kenya and east Africa tells Euromoney how Kenya’s banks have come together to buy ventilators; how Covid-19 will accelerate the adoption of digital banking; and why the removal of the interest rate cap is more important than ever for Kenya’s SMEs.

Sell-side research is integrating alternative data to navigate the current coronavirus crisis. It’s the future for bank research, but it’s not an easy transition.

From financial support and flexible working to Zoom ‘happy hours’, choirs, online yoga and mindfulness classes, banks around the world are seeking to address employee mental health during the Covid-19 crisis

Amid calls by the UN and the G20 for the private sector to do more, Citi has proposed a $100 billion coronavirus fund.

Naveed Sultan, head of treasury and trade solutions at Citi, says the overall default risk from coronavirus will remain low and will be limited to the SME sector.

The move to treasury and trade solutions is designed to bring cash management and trade businesses closer together.

Retail banking has been disrupted. Now comes wholesale’s moment, as banks shift into a higher gear to meet the increasingly onerous demands of digitally connected corporates. Only the best and most adaptable firms are likely to survive.

Pressure on wealth management profits will become fiercer in the decade ahead as low interest rates prevail. Business heads say global expertise, proximity to clients, technology and providing sustainable investing opportunities will help them win more business.