Office address: 388 Greenwich Street, New York, NY 10013
Website: citigroup.com
Year established: 1812
Company type: banking
Employees: 229,000+ (global)
Expertise: investment banking, capital markets and advisory, securities services and custody, wealth and private banking, asset management and alternatives, treasury and trade solutions, foreign exchange and derivatives, corporate and commercial lending
Parent company: N/A
Key people: Jane Fraser (CEO), Nadir Darrah (chief auditor), Sunil Garg (head of NA), Mark Mason (CFO), Anand Selvakesari (COO), Andy Sieg (head of wealth), Sara Wechter (CHRO)
Financing status: shareholder-owned company
Citigroup is a major bank based in New York that serves companies, governments, and investors. It runs trading, capital markets, and investment banking businesses across 94 markets worldwide. Citi moves nearly $5 trillion daily, while managing wealth for institutional and US personal clients.
Citigroup's origins began in 1812 after City Bank of New York was chartered to help the city rival older financial centers. The charter followed a long political battle involving merchants aligned with President James Madison and supporters of Vice President George Clinton.
Samuel Osgood became the first president, and Clinton's allies held almost half the board seats. That small New York bank later evolved over 200 years into the institution now known as Citi.
The bank opened a branch in Panama in 1904 at the US government's request and then expanded further. The National City Company sold bonds to ordinary investors, which helped fund companies and governments beyond Wall Street.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the bank built a broad New York branch network. It helped customers through the Great Depression and World War II, when women made up 43 percent of its almost 10,000 employees.
After 1945, the bank backed European rebuilding, financed major transport projects and expanded into the Middle East and Africa. In the 1960s and 1970s, it launched negotiable CDs, grew consumer banking and introduced ATMs for 24‑hour access.
From the 1980s, Citi expanded wealth and private banking services, including Citigold in Hong Kong. In 1998, a major merger created Citigroup, which later managed through the 2007–2008 crisis and reshaped its business mix.
It also supported the International Paralympic Committee through global sport partnerships. In 2021, Jane Fraser became Citi's CEO.
Citi has recently renewed its focus on investment banking under Viswas "Vis" Raghavan as head of banking. Since his arrival, the firm has hired at least 10 senior JPMorgan deal‑makers to strengthen M&A, equity capital markets, and technology coverage. This supports Jane Fraser's broader restructuring plans.
At the same time, Citigroup is pushing for growth in China as cross‑border activity increases. It has trimmed some consumer and technology roles, yet remains focused on Chinese companies expanding overseas and international clients. It's also pursuing a securities license and building on its existing capital markets permissions.
Citi offers a wide range of investment solutions that combine global reach and institutional‑grade platforms:
Citigroup also supports clients through its liquidity, risk, and cross‑border solutions that link investing to daily operations. Its global network and platforms help institutions and wealthy clients manage complex portfolios across markets.
Citigroup says that it aims to be a merit‑based workplace where people feel included and engaged. The bank says this culture supports its vision, expressed through these core fundamentals:
According to Citigroup, the firm offers benefits that support personal, professional and financial well‑being. Global opportunities, flexible work, and other resources help employees thrive in daily life:
Citigroup also has a $1 trillion sustainable finance goal through 2030 to support a low‑carbon, inclusive economy. It also targets net zero emissions by 2050 while helping clients with their own transitions.
Jane Fraser is chair of the board and CEO of Citigroup Inc. Fraser has spent more than 20 years at Citi in senior roles across its consumer and institutional businesses. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and an MA in economics from Cambridge University.
Citigroup's executive management team includes these key leaders and roles:
Together, these executives guide Citigroup's strategy, people, and day‑to‑day operations. Their decisions shape client service and long‑term shareholder returns.
Citigroup is using its global wealth arm to spot rich clients shifting assets from the US to the UK. Citi US stays central because those clients still need cross‑border advice, lending and portfolio management between American and British markets. This shift helps the bank grow international wealth revenue and refine its strategy for serving mobile, ultra‑wealthy families.
Elsewhere in Citi's ongoing transformation story, Citigroup hired outside counsel to review concerns about Andy Sieg, its head of Wealth. After the probe, the bank kept him in the role.
CEO Jane Fraser links that decision to strong results in the wealth unit and a broader turnaround that’s nearing its final phase. The bank also continues flexible work policies and sees clients more active in capital markets, which supports its long‑term wealth growth plans.
Wirehouse reps were breathing a bit easier last week as their employers were able to step back from the brink of financial collapse.
“This is a tough environment to launch a new financial product,” said Neel Kashkari, assistant secretary of the Department of the Treasury, but “never has the market needed this financial product as much as we need it now.”
Following this weekend’s turmoil on Wall Street, financial-sector job cuts may hit new heights, according to a report from Challenger Gray & Christmas Inc. of Chicago.
Handful of firms peddled equity swaps, stock loans to clients; 'IRS pussyfooted on this.'
Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. of New York expects its retail client holdings of auction rate securities to fall to $7.5 billion by the end of the year, said Bob McCann, head of the firm's retail unit.
Bank of America Corp. said yesterday that it is ready to settle with state and federal regulators over a probe into its marketing of auction rate securities.
Despite consistently having generated above-average returns during much of the past six years, industrial real estate investment trusts, especially those with a global reach, are slipping along with the economy.
Recent regulatory settlements by Citigroup Inc. and other big banks have set the tone for what corporate investors can expect from the auction rate securities mess.
The SEC chairman said investigations will go beyond the banks and include the brokerages that sold the investments.
The repurchase of some $35 billion in ARS is not expected to have a material financial impact, banks say.
Auction rate securities cases have spawned a new arbitration procedure that relies on a single public arbitrator to hear cases brought by investors who allege "consequential damage" claims from ARS.
Although brokers have welcomed the billions in auction rate securities buybacks announced by the big Wall Street firms in the past two weeks, they are still angry that it took six months for their companies to begin dealing with the fiasco.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s probe into the industry's selling of auction rate securities has widened.
Whether done voluntarily, as in the case of Merrill Lynch, or as the result of settlements with regulators, as with Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Wachovia, the buy-backs of failed auction rate securities that giant Wall Street firms have agreed to undertake are significant.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo will investigate Merrill's connection with the freezing of the ARS market.
