Story 165

“Citi is a bank with a brain and a bank with a SOUL” and “Our clients love doing business with us because we are good people.” These are Jane Fraser’s most commonly used refrains, though I think she finally stopped claiming bank with a soul because it is very, very clearly the most soul-less place on the Street. I’ve worked at 5 banks in my 20+ years on Wall Street, one of them was pretty much the cause of the GFC, and NONE of them have been so ethically obtuse or morrally corrupt than this place.

Sweet Jane, clients don’t bank with Citi because you are NICE, they bank with Citi because you are willing to bend over backwards, taking on unreasonable risk and walking regulatory lines. You aren’t trying to get your house in order because you genuinely care about regulation and not defrauding people, you are doing it so you can keep minting money for the few at the top while treating the rest of your staff like numbers who can be written off any given day.

There was an instance in APAC with a regulation that compliance kept fighting to implement because it wasn’t required by the “letter of the law,” but it was surely required by the “spirit of the law.” When internal audit made a finding on this, compliance fought it, tried to pin it on someone else, and when senior leadership got involved, the finding literally went away.

As for how they treat people, those who have given their all, worked around the clock, on weekends, built teams, attracted talent because of how amazing they are, have been treated like leftovers. While several men with abusive and sexual harassment claims continue to get hired and promoted. This is a place with no moral code, zero accountability or meritocracy and technology and processes that are stuck in the 1960’s.

There is no strategy other than to cut costs to try to fool shareholders into better optics. There is no investment in training staff, encouraging mobility, or promoting actual competent people. The MD process is a joke, someone once described it as the hardest Senate race you will run because it’s ALL politics.

If you still work there, get out. Don’t get bucketed into the stereotype of “lazy, unintelligent Citi people.” It will hurt your future chances for employment, because if you don’t leave, you’ll continue to have a target on your back and the longer you stay the bigger the target. Unless of course, you join them in their unethical games.