Boston, MA 08/20/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Financial conditions don’t seem easy for banking institutions in US. According to reports, the well-known bank of USA Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) is thinking seriously about the future of its retail business in Japan.
Why does it want to do that:
Experts call it a situational decision as the bank has to face a lot of regulatory issues in the U.S. and other countries. Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) tried its best to come over these issues, but discontinuing retail business in Japan seems the best option as of now. People close to this matter said that C had been doing business in Japan for decades, but after the changed global scenario, the bank was looking forward to auctioning its business. According to reports, C Japan has around 33 retail banking branches across the Japan with total deposits of 3.9 trillion yen ($38 billion).
After the closure of the retail segment in Japan, Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) would be able to focus on remaining businesses in Japan like investment banking, trading and corporate banking. Once this transaction gets closed, Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) will become the third largest bank in US on the basis of assets. Japan is the largest US bank with operations in about 100 countries across the planet.
Since the financial crisis of 2009, it is trying to make its operations comparatively simpler than other banks. Experts call it a well planned step of City Bank. It suffered a major setback earlier this year when Federal Reserve rejected one of the most ambitious steps of dividend and share-buyback offered by the bank in the near future. It left the bank with no other option than to sell its Japan operations and use that money in other operations. The bank is not looking forward to digging deep in the countries that have slower growth for its consumer banking operations. It has a few countries in the pipeline, but not has finalized any name so far.
