CitiBusiness Small Business Banking Services Closing In Singapore

Small businesses banking with Citi’s CitiBusiness unit won’t have the option in Singapore by mid-August as the U.S. giant shutters that division, the company said, according to a Tuesday (June 15) report from finews.asia.

The changes will lay off around 20 to 30 staff, the report said, and will affect around 2,000 customers.

Instead, small business clients will find service through CitiBusiness. The company called Singapore a priority market and said the company wants to keep investing in those businesses and bolstering that area of its operation.

The news comes as the banking giant is scaling back consumer banking services around the world and has been looking at selling off some Asia-Pacific businesses.

Instead, Citi plans on “re-allocating its resources and our people to support other growth areas and sharpen its client focus,” per a bank spokesperson, according to the report.

PYMNTS recently reported on Citi’s higher-than-expected Q1 profits, which hit $7.9 billion.

But that earnings report also came with the report that Citi would be closing most consumer banking operations in 13 Asian, Europe and Middle Eastern markets.

The new focus for the company, according to a spokesperson, would be on wealth management and businesses that work with corporate clients.

CEO Jane Fraser, who took that role in March, said the bank wouldn’t be doing consumer operations in Australia, Bahrain, China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

That said, the report from finews.asia stated that the bank is focusing on four “wealth hubs,” with one of those being Singapore. Citi’s goals are to double its wealth management from Singapore’s current 5 percent mark, along with tripling the number of clients it has in the area by 2025.

The company will hire over 330 relationship managers in service of that goal, the report said.