Citi is India’s largest foreign bank, even without retail business: Citi India CEO Ashu Khullar

Ashu Khullar, CEO, Citibank India

Ashu Khullar, CEO, Citi India and banking head, Indian subcontinent, says the bank’s retail business in India is pretty much history and the bank has moved miles ahead without it and very successfully.

“In India, despite the sale of a consumer business, for the year ended March’24 we were the largest foreign bank by revenues. Our clients, communities and our regulators and the government has seen that Citi continues to remain very active, whether it on some of the largest M&A transactions like the Disney-Reliance transaction or the sale of American towers or the largest IPOs like the Hyundai, Swiggy and Hexaware," he said speaking exclusively to Moneycontrol.

Khullar is soon to take charge as co-head, global assets management and is set to leave for London in a few weeks. Recalling that Indian consumer business was an incredible one, built painstakingly by his teams, the decision to exit the space by no means should be seen as Citi cutting down some wings in India.

“We had taken a global strategic decision under Jane (Fraser), that we will focus on areas where we believe we add the most sustainable competitive advantage to our clients’ benefit. We believe that is cross border (business) for global clients who need global banking,” Khullar affirmed. Stating that the bank has emerged as the leader among foreign banks in India, Khullar said, Citi presently is the largest corporate FX (foreign exchange) player in the market.

“In the custody business space we have a 36% market share in all FPI assets,” he reiterated. “We continue to do innovations in some of our services business, payments platforms using the digital infrastructure which the government has created”.

He was quick to add that on multiple fronts, Citibank India has proven to its clients “..that we are investing and we are with them. We are trying to give them the best of Citi," Khullar said.

What Khullar is equally proud of is the talent story in India. “We have five GCC (global capacity centres) with 30,000 plus people. They're getting more high end in terms of the work we do,” he explained while adding that two-thirds of the technology-related work globally is done out of India. “India’s no longer just back office or middle office. It's increasingly tech-analytics. I think very proud of India as a major talent source for Citi”.

When asked whether such an institutional approach is what foreign banks including Citi will prefer to have in India going forward, Khullar was clear that foreign banks would want to play to their strengths. “I don't think foreign banks are going to try to out compete with SBI or some of the private banks,” he said.

While refraining to make statements on behalf of the entire foreign banking fraternity, Khullar said Citi’s strength is clearly the globality of its business. “We are in the best position to meet cross border needs of our clients, inside out and outside in. We have a very powerful, broadest, deepest institutional services and product platform, investment banking, transaction services, custody, corporate banking, trade finance markets. That's what we'll compete on and those are the areas where foreign banks can make a bigger difference and be more differentiated."

Is that why increasingly foreign banks prefer to have branch operations in the country rather than operate as a subsidiary of a foreign bank? Perhaps, he replied without another thought. “Unless somebody has an ambition to be a deep retail bank with a lot of branch businesses, the branch model serves the customers better, especially global customers. They get the benefit of the parent counterparty risk from a bank perspective, benefit of a global documentation and frankly, from a regulatory perspective, we are treated exactly the same way, as if we were a subsidiary in terms of our priority sector lending obligations, large exposure framework and everything else”.