Aggregate investment banking and markets revenues fell 12% at the big five US investment banks in the first quarter of 2022. Their chief executives were confident that dealflow will return, but were also united in their uncertainty over how central bank responses to inflation will play out in markets.

Jane Fraser can front Citi’s investor day with good news about consumer divestments in Asia. It is hard to see a Russia sale now, though.

In a good deal for both parties, Citi makes progress on its programme of consumer business sales in Asia, while UOB gets an instant boost to its heft in Asean.

The decision to sell Citibanamex ends the ‘Mexican exception’.

A barnstorming year in primary equity markets and M&A advisory, combined with consistent and comprehensive debt capital markets coverage, earn Citi the award for the region’s best investment bank.

Citi wins this award in part because it was so successful in securing a role for itself in the region’s big Spac deals. The US bank completed 11 M&A transactions in the year to the end of March 2021, worth a total of $53.3 billion, according to Dealogic data, for a 37% market share.

This category highlights the range of different themes through which banks do responsible work and this year we look at Citi’s efforts with youth in the region. Youth unemployment is already a serious problem in Asia and the pandemic made it a whole lot worse. Citi’s focus on the issue deserves recognition.

In terms of deal volume, during the qualification period for these awards there was little daylight between the top two banks, Citi and JPMorgan, in debt financing. However, Citi pipped its US rival this year for being the bank that reopened the region for debt financing after the Covid-19 deep freeze.

An unrivalled regional network presence, commitment to innovation and consistent support for clients during the pandemic earn Citi the award for CEE’s best bank for transaction services.

Citi stands head and shoulders above the competition in Middle East investment banking. The US bank ranked number one in M&A, completing $53.3 billion worth of deals across the awards period, according to Dealogic. It also topped the equity capital market tables, completing 18 deals worth a combined $2.33 billion. It led the way in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Israel, completing several deals that matter deeply to a region keen to wean itself off oil and gas, and to create truly diversified economies.

The financing category offers us three models to consider. Firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley show greater strength in equity than debt. Others, notably Credit Suisse and Deutsche, do interesting and creative things in the debt markets, sometimes with careful use of the balance sheet, but tend to appear less in league tables.

Regional banks in Africa are developing internationally orientated and increasingly sophisticated transaction services platforms; often, as at Equity Bank, to service corporate and small and medium-sized enterprise clients trading across borders. Ecobank, meanwhile, is bolstering its business with partnerships including part-owners Qatar National Bank and Nedbank, as well as with regional telecoms companies and payments firms like Flutterwave.

In 2020 Citi added 11 new countries in Latin America to its digital onboarding platform, which now stands at 47 countries globally. Its global platform enables the US bank to provide unrivalled geographical breadth in its digitization efforts. Not only can the bank be more efficient itself – rolling out central innovations globally – but it also enables its multinational client list to embrace digital banking in most of the markets in which it operates.

Jane Fraser’s decision to exit 13 Asian and EMEA retail markets makes sense if the capital is redeployed in better businesses. But has Citi forgotten the power of the Asian consumer and what they will become?

In creating a single wealth management platform, called Citi Global Wealth, the US bank is recognizing its shortcomings and planning for the future.

As the world cheered news of a potential Covid-19 vaccine in early November, important steps were being taken on equitable manufacture and distribution as well.

A new book concludes that the rules for trading EM FX and fixed income have successfully survived Covid.

The payment industry’s ability to withstand the disruption caused by the coronavirus suggests that lessons learned from previous outbreaks have served the industry well.

Private banking is a business based on personal relationships and trust – and it’s hard to truly connect with someone on Zoom. So long as the pandemic persists, this presents a substantial challenge to wealth managers, who can only grow their businesses by bonding with wealthy clients and winning new mandates.

Multi-dealer platforms may remain bullish about their prospects, but if other banks follow Citi’s lead and pull away from them, market share may continue to fall.

It seems odd that a good soldier like Mike Corbat should hand to one of his colleagues the tough task of leading Citi through the Covid battlefield.

As the world’s financial markets went into crisis in 2020, Citi showed it had the capital strength and global reach to keep its clients in business

Citi’s scale across the emerging markets is unrivalled, and its investment bankers have been successful in playing to that strength throughout the last year.

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The US bank’s Asia chief executive and former global head of financial institutions group talks to Euromoney about his ambitions in digital, wealth and transaction banking, and about the bank’s future as a leader of both global and local change.

JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon indicated that trading revenues could fall by 50% from their current elevated levels, but the boom has already helped to offset Covid-related loan provisions.

As of late June 2020, Citi, together with its charitable Citi Foundation, had committed some $100 million to Covid-19 relief efforts. While the targets of its aid are varied, the bank has made a special focus on supporting people and communities of colour, recognizing the disproportionate impact the pandemic has had on these communities.

With Africa and the world expected to enter a protracted period of low growth, more companies will need to restructure and M&A will become a more dominant trend in the region. Over the last 12 months, Citi has demonstrated its expertise in these fields in Africa and it is Euromoney’s best bank for advisory in Africa this year.

“This pandemic will change a lot of things in terms of how people approach crises in the future,” Martin Mugambi, Citi’s chief executive for Kenya and east Africa, tells Euromoney.

Citi has the largest presence of any global bank in Africa – active in over 40 countries, with offices in 16 of those. The bank excels at capacity building and innovation, working with a vast array of partnerships with government, government agencies, fintechs, local financial institutions, consumer goods companies, social enterprises and nonprofits.