Citigroup Asia Investments
Latest news from Citigroup Inc. is the possibility of a $2bn investment in Asia Pacific banking. This is in line with the bank’s attempt to increase its “service offerings to the expanding middle class in the region.” According to the company’s Asia-Pacific region head of consumer banking Jonathan Larsen, “the opportunity is very significant. I think the broad trend will continue, i.e. the growth of the middle class, the increase in concentration of affluent, the increase in growth of consumption.” The stock price has changed -5.9 percent over the last three months.
New Profit Areas for Citigroup
This move will lead to new areas of profitability for Citigroup since at some point it was banned from adding Indonesian wealth management clients due to a potential fraud issue. Since the bank makes tons of its money through emerging markets, this new area will clearly render it a great deal of extra monies.
Bad Citigroup Publicity
Well sometimes even a reputable institution like Citigroup can fall into bad ways or at least be accused of t his. According to Arief Sulistyanto (National Police Director for Economy and Special Crime) it has been alleged that a local relationship manager stole 16.1 billion rupiah from three clients back in 2009-10 “by using blank forms signed by the customers.”
Clearly Citigroup needs to move away from bad things happening and clear its good name. Thankfully it has a pretty good reputation and with its new moves into potential Asia investments, it needs to work hard to maintain (and improve on) this so that they are known for putting money in (vis-à-vis investments) rather than taking money out (alleged stolen money).