Citibank India is the Indian subsidiary of

Citigroup Citigroup Inc. or Citi (Style (visual arts), stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services company based in New York City. The company was formed in 1998 by the merger of Citicorp, t ...

. In March 2023, Citibank India's consumer banking division was sold to

Axis Bank Axis Bank Limited, formerly known as UTI Bank (1993–2007), is an Indian Multinational corporation, multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Mumbai. It is India's third largest private sector bank by assets and fo ...

. After the sale, Citibank India continued to provide corporate and institutional banking services in the country.

History

Citibank began operations in 1902 in Calcutta (

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

). In the late 1980s and 1990s, the division was one of the first banks to offer credit cards in India. In 1992, Citibank India was alleged to have played the leading role in allowing or facilitating the

market manipulation In economics and finance, market manipulation occurs when someone intentionally alters the supply or demand of a security to influence its price. This can involve spreading misleading information, executing misleading trades, or manipulating ...

that drove up prices of shares on the

Bombay Stock Exchange BSE Limited, also known as the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), is an Indian stock exchange based in Mumbai. It is the 6th largest stock exchange in the world by total market capitalization, exceeding $5 trillion in May 2024. Established with t ...

during the

1992 Indian stock market scam The 1992 Indian stock market scam was a market manipulation carried out by Harshad Mehta with other bankers and politicians on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The scam caused significant disruption to the stock market of India, defrauding investors of ...

. After an investigation by the

Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of ...

, four officials at the bank resigned. In September 1994, India fined the bank $16.29 million, the most of any bank of the 20 banks implicated in the scandal, which were fined a total of $47 million. In 2010,

Pramit Jhaveri Pramit Jhaveri is an Indian banker and ex-CEO of Citi. He served as Citi's India CEO from 2010 to 2019 and is the longest-serving India chief of the bank. Prior to his role as CEO, Pramit set up Citi's investment banking business in India. In 20 ...

, became chief executive officer. In 2011, the company was fined Rs 25 lakh for violations of

know your customer Know your customer (KYC) guidelines and regulations in financial services require professionals to verify the identity, suitability, and risks involved with maintaining a business relationship with a customer. The procedures fit within the broad ...

and

anti–money laundering Anti–money laundering (AML) refers to a set of policies and practices to ensure that financial institutions and other regulated entities prevent, detect, and report financial crime and especially money laundering activities. Anti–money laun ...

rules after a fraud of Rs 400-crore was perpetrated via one of the company's branches. In 2019, Citibank paid Rs 4.5 crore to settle allegations by the

Securities and Exchange Board of India The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is the Regulatory agency, regulatory body for securities and commodity market in India under the administrative domain of Ministry of Finance (India), Ministry of Finance within the Government ...

of failure to adequately supervise an employee after the employee used the bank's infrastructure to forge bank statements of clients. Ashu Khullar was named chief executive officer in 2019.

Sale of consumer banking division

In April 2021, Citigroup announced that it would exit the consumer banking operations in 13 countries including India. Citigroup announced that it will continue to serve larger clients and institutions in these countries. In 2022,

announced the acquisition of Citibank India's consumer banking business for

₹ The Indian rupee sign ⟨₹⟩ is the currency symbol for the Indian rupee (ISO 4217: INR), the official currency of India. Designed by D. Udaya Kumar, it was presented to the public by the Government of India on 15 July 2010, following its ...

12,325

crore Crore (; abbreviated cr) denotes the quantity ten million (107) and is equal to 100 lakh in the Indian numbering system. In many international contexts, the decimal quantity is formatted as 10,000,000, but when used in the context of the India ...

($1.6 billion). The acquisition was completed in March 2023 at a lower price of

11,603

($1.41 billion) due to customer attrition and decrease in deposits. All Citibank retail branches were rebranded as Axis Bank, with Axis Bank absorbing 97 percent of Citibank India's workforce of 3,200 people.

References

{{Banking in India , state=autocollapse Citigroup 2023 mergers and acquisitions Banks established in 1902 Indian companies established in 1902 Indian subsidiaries of foreign companies