Citi, an American multinational investment bank and financial services company based in New York City, is now working on improving its global consumer base and recruiting more talent as it continues to grow its banking presence in Asia.
Just recently, the largest foreign commercial bank in the country completed the sale of its retail-banking business to the Aboitiz-led Union Bank of the Philippines and is now poised to strengthen its corporate banking business in the country.
Fernando Fleury, head of Corporate Banking at Citi Philippines, said in a statement that the company is now beefing up its pool of talent in line with this.
Fleury said Citi has already increased its commercial banking team by 10 percent.
“We have already been strengthening the team. Since I came to the job a year ago, the team has grown in terms of the number of people (over 10 percent). We are now hiring talent from other firms and we want to attract the top talents,” he said.
Citi’s history in the Philippines dates back to July 1902 when the International Banking Corporation, the forerunner of Citibank, was first established in Manila.
What Citi’s retail-banking exit means
Even as Citi exits the consumer-banking segment, the company will still continue to provide corporate banking, treasury, and transactional banking.
The Institutional Clients Group of Citi Philippines is a recognized leader in arranging and providing financial services for the public sector, the top-tier Filipino corporates, multinationals, and the financial institutions operating in the country.
It also offers innovative end-to-end cash management solutions, trade finance and services, securities custody and funds services, corporate banking and advisory services, and the most comprehensive and sophisticated range of treasury products in fixed income, currencies, commodities, and derivatives.
“We see the divestiture of the consumer bank as a real opportunity for us to get even more focused, more nimble, more aggressive, as well as more equipped with the resources that we need to further grow our institutional businesses,” Fleury explained.
For his part, Jan Metzger, head of Banking, Capital Markets, and Advisory of Citi Asia-Pacific, said that the decision of Citi to exit the retail banking landscape in the Philippines and 12 other markets in Asia is part of a strategic refocus.
UnionBank has already obtained the green light from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to acquire the consumer banking business of Citi in the Philippines.
The BSP issued a notice last July 18 approving UnionBank’s acquisition of the retail banking segment of Citigroup.
The acquisition is composed of selected consumer assets and liabilities, real estate properties, and interests of Citi Square Building Corp., as well as 100 percent of the capital stock in Citicorp Financial Services and Insurance Brokerage Philippines Inc.
The Aboitiz-led bank emerged as the dark horse in the bidding for the retail-banking segment of Citi in the Philippines last year with an offer of P55 billion, edging the country’s largest lenders.
UnionBank raised P40 billion via a stock rights offering (SRO), wherein existing shareholders led by Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Insular Life Assurance Co. Ltd., and pension fund manager Social Security System infused fresh equity to partially fund the acquisition.
