Citi: a European wealth hub in Luxembourg

Citi, the New York financial group, runs its European hub for wealth management from Luxembourg and provides fund and securities services from the Grand Duchy, all overseen from Citigroup in New York.

From City Bank of New York

Citi traces its history to 1812 and the City Bank of New York, and has been one of the pillars of American banking ever since. The institution grew over two centuries into Citigroup, formed in 1998 and today one of the largest American financial groups, serving corporates, institutions and individuals in nearly 100 countries from its New York headquarters. Its private bank arrived early in Luxembourg, established in the Grand Duchy around 50 years ago. The choice fitted the country’s character, since the Luxembourg financial centre has long organised itself around the structuring and planning of wealth, what local bankers call the Luxembourg toolbox, the very business Citi’s private bankers conduct for their clients.

A wealth hub built for the EU

Citi has since made Luxembourg its European hub for wealth. The decision owed much to regulation. To keep a booking centre inside the European Union after the United Kingdom’s departure, and to meet the requirements of the MiFID framework, Citi reinforced its private banking operation in the Grand Duchy, adding local front-office teams and investment advisors rather than steering European clients through London. The move kept its European wealth business firmly inside the single market. From its offices in Bertrange, the bank serves entrepreneurs, executives, investors and their family offices, part of a global private bank that looks after more than 13,000 client families and counts a quarter of the world’s billionaires among them. Luxembourg now sits alongside London, Paris, Geneva, Zurich, Frankfurt and Milan on Citi’s map of European wealth centres, and the group sees the country developing into a global wealth hub in its own right.

Funds and securities, the other pillar

Beyond private wealth, Citi runs a substantial securities business in the country through Citibank Europe plc, Luxembourg Branch. The parent company, Citibank Europe, is based in Ireland and dates to 1965, and its Luxembourg arm provides corporate and investment banking alongside cash management, custody, trustee services, fund administration, transfer agency and shareholder services. In January 2016 Citi folded its UK-based Citibank International arm into this Irish-headquartered structure, simplifying a pan-European bank. Citi regards Luxembourg as one of its most important fund centres anywhere in the world, and a key location for its securities-services business in Europe. Whether serving a billionaire family or administering an international fund, the Grand Duchy operation answers to the same parent in New York.