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Soon, Citigroup will be closing its consumer banking operation in the 13 markets which are across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.
However, the US banking group will instead run these operations starting from the four hubs in Singapore, Hong Kong, London, and the United Arab Emirates. It will be continuing to offer products to larger clients and institutions in these 13 markets.
Notably, Citigroup will be shutting down after consumer banking operations in Australia, Bahrain, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Ms. Fraser mentioned in a statement, “As a result of the ongoing refresh of our strategy, we have decided that we are going to double down on wealth. We will operate our consumer banking franchise in Asia and EMEA solely from four wealth centres, Singapore, Hong Kong, UAE, and London.”
Last year September, MS Fraser already took over Citi which is the first woman to become one of the chief executives of a Wall Street bank.
She also added, “While the other 13 markets have excellent businesses, we don’t have the scale we need to compete. We believe our capital, investment dollars, and other resources are better deployed against higher returning opportunities in wealth management and our institutional businesses in Asia.”
On Thursday, for the first three months of 2021, Citi has reported a net income of almost $7.9bn (£5.7bn) by beating the analysts’ expectations. Notably, the banking group will be exiting key markets in Asia and the rivals are also expanding in the region.
HSBC has become a new venture for seeking out the wealthy consumers in China and is now employing 3,000 bankers in the next five years. US firms Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan believed that they are intensifying operations in China.
