Support for customer flows helped Citi in Swiss franc fiasco

Singapore

A WILLINGNESS to service customer flows meant Citi recovered somewhat from its losses after the surprise unpegging of the Swiss franc against the euro, said Patrick Dewilde, the global bank's Asia-Pacific head of markets and securities services.

In an interview where he also spoke about the bank's restructuring process, the Singapore-based Mr Dewilde told The Business Times that while he cannot provide details on the Swiss franc incident, the bank's trading rooms "did very, very well" in the second half of January.

"We kept on serving our customers from 7am in the morning till New York went to bed . . . Customers knew we helped them out, and kept on trading with us, kept on com…