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Citi’s job cuts to have no impact on Asia Pac custody
China and Australia are spearheading Citi’s growth plans in the Asia Pacific, according to David Russell, and the global staff cuts announced recently will have no impact on the firm in this region.
Interviewed last week on FTV Talking Points, the investment internet TV program, Russell said: “We’re still expanding in Asia, so it’s not going to impact our business… We are bringing best-of-class tailored platforms into Asia.”
Russell, the Hong Kong-based Asia region head of Citi Securities and Fund Services, was speaking just days after the bank announced a global headcount reduction of 4 per cent, or about 11,000 jobs.
Asked what Citi’s competitive advantage might be in Australia and China, he said many local players had single currency platforms yet the funds had branched out into non-standard instruments which Citi’s platforms were well suited to dealing with, with local adjustments.
A lot of Citi’s big Asian clients are broker dealers who have tough requirements for their service providers in terms of high-volume transaction processing to tight deadlines.
“Our platforms are industrial strength,” he said.
Also there is a very recent trend for brokers to also look at outsourcing their back and middle offices.
“That was very rare just a couple of years ago; they have wanted to keep it inhouse. But cost pressures are prompting a new look.”
With China, he said the managed funds industry, at about $US 500 billion, had got to that size in only about five-or-so years. Because the economy was so big and wealth accumulation was happening so fast the industry was still sub-scale.
Russell also indicated that he supported moves to form an association of custodians operating in the Asian region. While this would have more complexities to it than a single-country association, such as ACSA in Australia, “I think it can still work… I think there’s a need, because a lot of the issues are common across service providers.”
For the full interview go to the link: http://ftvtalkingpoints.tv/view/citi_sharpens_focus_for_custody_clients
