CITIGROUP plans to recruit around 3,000 new staff for its institutional business in Asia as it steps up its presence in the region.

The new staff will work in areas including investment, corporate and commercial banking, in roles involving trading, securities services and trade finance, Citi spokesperson James Griffiths said. The bulk of the recruits will be in Hong Kong and Singapore, but also in India, South Korea, China and Australia where the firm has large institutional businesses.

"Despite exiting retail baking outside Hong Kong and Singapore, this region remains front and centre of Citi's global strategy," he said by phone. "We've been in Asia for 120 years. We have a very strong local presence."

The move comes on top of proposals by the bank to hire more than 4,000 technology staff globally to help move institutional clients online in the wake of the pandemic, which Bloomberg News reported Monday (Jun 6).

Citi has around US$200 billion in wealth assets in Asia, and the bank aims to grow client assets by US$150 billion in the region by 2025, Griffiths said. The bank's revenues in Asia last year were in excess of US$10 billion.

The US lender said in January that it had hired 5,500 junior employees for its Asia businesses over the last 2 years, part of a target to recruit 6,000 by 2023.

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Citi announced in April 2021 that it would exit retail banking in Asia apart from in Hong Kong and Singapore. It also said Hong Kong and Singapore would be 2 of the 4 bank's global wealth hubs.

Reuters reported the news earlier on Tuesday. BLOOMBERG