Citibank

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(Redirected from Citicorp)

Citibank was founded in 1812 as City Bank of New York. Citibank is now the consumer and corporate banking arm of financial services giant Citigroup, the largest company of its kind in the world.

1 History
2 Citibank subsidiaries
3 Miscellaneous financials
4 Key people
5 Competitors
6 Trivia
7 See also
8 External links

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History

Image:Citibank Chinatown.jpg

Founded in 1812 as City Bank of New York, in 1865 it joined the national banking system and became The National City Bank of New York. In 1894, it became the largest bank in the United States, and in 1902, it began expanding internationally and became the first major U.S. bank to establish a foreign department. In 1913 it was the first contributor to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Charles E. Mitchell was elected president in 1921 and in 1929 was made chairman, a position he held until 1933. Under Mitchell the bank expanded rapidly and by 1930 had 100 branches in 23 countries outside the United States.

In 1952, James Stillman Rockefeller was elected president and then chairman in 1959, serving until 1967. The bank changed its name to First National City Bank of New York in 1955, then shortened it to First National City Bank in 1962, and changed it to Citibank in 1976. In 1981, Citibank chartered a South Dakota subsidiary to take advantage of new laws that raised the state's maximum permissible interest rate on loans to 25 percent (then the highest in the nation).

Citibank was one of the first U.S. banks to introduce automatic teller machines in the 1970s, in order to reduce the number of human tellers and give 24-hour access to accounts.

Citibank's operations in California are fairly recent, since it bought out Cal-Fed in 2001. Also in 2001, Citibank settled a lawsuit for improperly assessing late fees. The class action lawsuit was for 45 million dollars. Following this Citibank lobbied in Congress to pass legislation that would limit class action lawsuits to 5 million dollars unless they were initiated on a federal level. Many consumer advocate websites report that Citibank is still improperly assessing late fees.

In August of 2004, Citibank entered the Texas market with the purchase of First American Bank of Bryan, Texas. The deal established Citigroup's retail banking presence in Texas, giving Citibank over 100 branches, $3.5 billion in assets and approximately 120,000 new customers in the state. First American Bank was renamed Citibank Texas after the take-over was completed on March 31, 2005.

It is hoped that with both California and Texas markets, Citibank can appeal to both states' Latino population, and offer products on both sides of the border through Citibank in the U.S., and Banamex (Citigroup's Mexican division) in Mexico.

Citibank has operations in more than 100 countries and territories around the world. More than half of its 1,400 offices are in the United States, mostly in the New York City, Chicago, Miami, and Washington DC metropolitan areas, as well as in California.

In addition to the standard banking transactions, Citibank offers insurance, credit card and investment products. Their online services division is among the most successful in the field, claiming about 15 million users.

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Citibank subsidiaries

Citibank, N.A. - The "original" Citibank, primarily doing business in New York State and the tri-state New York City metropolitan area. Also the parent company of the other subsidiaries.
Citibank Texas, N.A. - The former First American bank.
Citibank (West), F.S.B. - The former Citicorp Savings (a savings and loan operating in California), as well as the former California Federal Bank and Golden State Bank.
Citibank, F.S.B. - The primary Citibank subsidiary serving all other states, based in Chicago.
Citibank (South Dakota), N.A. - A credit card and lending-only bank based in South Dakota, including the former Universal Bank and Associates National Bank.

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