Citibank is the consumer banking division of financial services multinational Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, later First National City Bank of New York. As of March 2010, Citigroup is the third largest bank holding company in the United States by total assets, after Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase.
Citibank has retail banking operations in more than 160 countries and territories around the world. More than half of its 1,400 offices are in the United States, mostly in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington, D.C. and Miami. More recently, Citibank has expanded its operations in the Boston, Philadelphia, Houston, and Dallas metropolitan areas.
In addition to standard banking transactions, Citibank markets insurance, credit cards and investment products. Their online services division is among the most successful in the field claiming about 15 million users.
As a result of the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 and huge losses in the value of its subprime mortgage assets, Citibank was bailed out by aid from the U.S. government under plans agreed for Citigroup. On November 23, 2008, in addition to initial aid of $25 billion, a further $25 billion was invested in the corporation together with guarantees for risky assets amounting to $306 billion. Since this time, Citibank has repaid its government loans in full.
In 2011, we opened state-of-the-art digitized Citi Smart Retail Banking branches in Washington, D.C., New York, Tokyo and Busan, South Korea, and continued renovating our entire branch network. We also opened innovative sales and service centers in Moscow and St. Petersburg and Citi Express modules – 24-hour service units – in Colombia. Branch openings in three new cities in China expanded our presence in the country to 13 cities.
As one of the world's largest credit card issuers, Citi Branded Cards introduced several new products in 2011, including: Citi ThankYou®, Citi Executive®/AAdvantage® and Citi Simplicity® cards in the U.S.; Latin America partnership cards with Colombia-based airline Avianca and with Banamex and AeroMexico; and a merchant loyalty program in Europe.
Citi Commercial Bank is dedicated to serving the needs of 100,000 small to medium-size companies in 32 countries. The business' global strategy is to leverage Citi's worldwide network to help our clients navigate a continually globalizing marketplace. The business grew profitably in 2011 and has improved overall client satisfaction within each region.
U.S. mortgage originations of $63 billion continued to show strong improvement, particularly in branch volumes and through the direct-to-consumer channel, which recently surpassed $1 billion. Helping to keep people in their homes remained a top priority throughout 2011. Since 2007, we have helped more than one million homeowners in their efforts to avoid potential foreclosure. We launched the Road to Recovery consumer outreach and homeowner support network in the U.S. to help distressed homeowners. Globally, Citi Mortgage partnered with target markets to build a foundation for expansion in countries with high-growth opportunities.
