Print

Mail

wiki links

Citigroup eyes SMEs to boost business

Citigroup Inc, the world's largest financial services company, aims to target the nation's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) next year in hopes of driving up its annual performance by at least 10 percent year-on-year, Morris Li (利明獻), country officer of Citigroup Taiwan, said yesterday.

"Many of the large-scale companies are already our customers. One of our main focuses next year will be to secure SMEs, whose annual sales reach between NT$2 billion [US$60 million] and NT$8 billion, to boost our corporate banking business," he said.

Battered by the badly performing equity market, Citigroup Taiwan estimates that this year's bottom line will achieve only minor growth from last year, and may decline, he said. It earned pre-tax profits of NT$9.67 billion last year.

Li, 50, was appointed as Citigroup Taiwan country officer in early September. Before the promotion, he served as the com-pany's country treasurer, head of sales and trading for Taiwan, and head of corporate sales and structuring for greater China.

Li replaces and will report to Chan Tze-ching (陳子政), who has relocated back to Hong Kong as country officer and head of corporate and investment banking for greater China. Citigroup, which has been in Taiwan for 41 years, employs about 2,500 people here, according to its Web site.

In the first formal press briefing held after the financial regulator issued approval on the personnel change, Li said his main task is to sustain the company's growth in the face of several market uncertainties.

Implementation of the new accounting rules -- the Statements of Financial Accounting Standard No. 34 -- and the new risk assessment system, Basel II, next year are bound to send shock waves throughout the banking sector, which also faces pressure to integrate as the government has been working to consolidate the industry.

But thanks to the company's complete product line in both corporate and consumer banking, Li said Citibank looks to form strategic alliances with the nation's financial institutions by providing global banking know-how and cross-border advice to assist its local partners.

"For Citibank, the [govern-ment's] financial reform will create opportunities of competition as well as cooperation," he said.

Paul Leech, chief executive of HSBC Taiwan, who said in March that London-based HSBC Holdings Plc had no plans to buy any Taiwanese financial institutions, said yesterday that the bank did not rule out the possibility of acquisitions.

"HSBC doesn't need to buy a local bank now, but we keep our options open," he said at a press briefing.

HSBC hired 450 people in Taiwan this year and will add more staff next year as it expands its consumer and corporate banking, Leech said.

"Taiwan is still worth more in investments and we'd love to be a lot bigger in Taiwan," he said.

The bank now has 2,500 staff on the island, but less than 450 will be hired next year, he said.

One of HSBC's focuses next year will be commercial banking in the greater China market of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, said Margaret Leung (梁高美懿), general manager, global co-head of commercial banking, in the same briefing.

"Greater China is the area of higher growth," Leung said. "We expect no slower profit growth next year than each market's GDP growth."

In the case of China, she said, that would amount to about 9 percent, and in the case of Taiwan, about 4 percent.
This story has been viewed 1919 times.