Citibank India

Citibank India

Type	Subsidiary of Citigroup
Industry	Banking Financial services
Founded	1902; 119 years ago (1902)
Headquarters	Mumbai, Maharashtra , India
Key people	Pramit Jhaveri (Vice-Chairman)[1] Ashu Khullar (Chief Executive Officer)[2]
Products	Credit Cards Debit Cards Loans Investments Assurance/Insurance NRI Banking Private Banking
Owner	Citigroup
Website	www.online.citibank.co.in

Citibank India is a foreign bank in India with a full service onshore platform. Its Indian headquarters is at Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is a subsidiary of Citigroup,^[3] a multinational financial services corporation headquartered in New York City, United States. Citibank India's services are investment banking, advisory and transaction services, capital markets, risk management, retail banking, and Cards. Although headquartered in Mumbai, the bank has most of its workforce based out of Chennai followed by Mumbai and Gurugram.

On 15 Apr 2021, after 119 years in India, Citibank said that it will exit consumer banking businesses in 13 markets including India as part of a restructuring plan.^[4]

History[]

Established in 1902 in Calcutta (Kolkata), Citi India has a long history. Currently, Citigroup, the owner of Citi India, is one of the largest foreign direct investors in financial services in the country. Citi introduced early innovations to India such as the ATM, credit card, 24-hour phone banking, internet banking, and instant SMS alerts.

Citi India is backed by a network spanning 98 markets across the world. The bank serves close to 2.5 million customers ranging from corporate houses, multinationals operating in India, SMEs, self-employed entrepreneurs, households, and individuals.^{[citation needed]}

Citibank's Bombay branch has formally responded to allegations linking it to India's biggest financial scandal, flatly rejecting charges of wrongdoing or of flouting central bank guidelines.

The bank has written a 16-page note to the Reserve Bank of India, the central bank, explaining all transactions linked to the $1.2 billion securities scandal, Ravi Bhatia, vice president and director for the bank's corporate affairs, said Tuesday."As far as we're concerned everything was above board," Mr. Bhatia said. The note and additional documentation has also been sent to a parliamentary committee probing the scandal.

A central bank report on the scandal, released in August, accused the Bombay branches of Citibank and Bank of America of irregularities in securities transactions. The scandal was originally exposed in April, sending share prices plummeting.

Ram Niwas Mirdha, chairman of the investigating parliamentary committee, has accused foreign banks of initiating the fraud. Prosecutors allege that brokers and bankers siphoned money from the inter-bank securities market and used it to artificially pump up Bombay share prices.

The London-based Standard Chartered Bank has initiated legal action related to the scandal against Citibank in New York.

The suit is to recover $44 million claimed by Standard Chartered. Citibank is contesting the claim, saying it has no liabilities in the scandal.

Citibank was the biggest foreign player in the Bombay securities market. Between April 1991 and May 1992 it completed business worth more than $8.3 billion – 17 percent of such deals by all banks – according to the report by R. Janakiraman, deputy governor of the central bank. Mr. Bhatia said Citibank was being wrongly portrayed as the villain and dismissed accusations by prominent broker Harshad Mehta that it had masterminded the scandal.

When Mr. Mehta talked to the parliamentary committee earlier this month he had produced no evidence against Citibank, Mr. Bhatia said.

"It's a figment of his imagination," he said.

Mr. Bhatia declined to make available a copy of Citibank's responses to the Janakiraman report but outlined the contents in an interview with Reuters.

"Effectively, what we've told them is that whatever issues have been brought up, they did not have full knowledge of them before submitting the report," Mr. Bhatia said.

"We did not have the opportunity to respond before the report was published," he said.

Citibank had "not done any irregular securities transactions," Mr. Bhatia added.

Responding to central bank allegations that Citibank's bankers receipts – promissory notes issued to pledge delivery of government securities – were improperly formatted and were signed by only one instead of the required two signatories, Mr. Bhatia said this was common market practice that had since been rectified.

"No bank was using the required format," he said.^[5]

On 15 Apr 2021, Citi announced that it will exit the consumer banking operations in India, Australia, Bahrain, China, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. The bank said that its institutional client group will continue to serve customers in these 13 countries.

The bank said that it does not see enough scale in the consumer business in the 13 markets and believes its “capital, investment dollars and other resources are better deployed against higher returning opportunities in wealth management and our institutional businesses in Asia.”

Leadership[]

Ashu Khullar was named chief executive officer in 2019. Khullar joined Citi in 1988 and worked for Citibank in Europe, Africa, and London. Before taking office, he was the head of capital markets for the Asia-pacific region.^[6]

Former CEO, Pramit Jhaveri, became vice-chairman of City-group's banking, capital markets and advisory business for Asia Pacific in 2019.^[7] He served as CEO for nine years before stepping down.^[6]

Products and services[]

Citi India offers consumers and institutions a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit; corporate and investment banking; institutional equity research and sales; foreign exchange; credit cards, commercial banking; and treasury and trade solutions. Citi India's balance sheet is considered among the best performing in the Indian banking industry, with a net NPA level of 0.55% as of 31 March 2018^{[citation needed]}.

Digital Wallet Support[]

Citibank India only supports Samsung Pay, for their credit cards, not debit cards.^[8] Apple Pay, Google Pay or their own proprietary apps are not supported.

External links[]

• Official Website

References[]