Since the economic crisis began, Citigroup (NYSE:C) has contracted its business in Japan, selling off parts of its finance businesses in the country. That is starting t change as Citigroup will open up four new retail branches in the country.
The strategy by Citigroup isn’t just to open up a few branches for expansion though, as in a statement they said they’ll use the new locations as experiments for smart banking services, which entail the use of new technology and ideas.
Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit said about the new initiative, “Japan is innovative, highly competitive, and with strong customer expectations for service and quality.
Of the four new retail branches, the first two will be located in Marunouchi and Nihonbashi, which are in the center of Tokyo. The company didn’t say where the other two locations will be. This will bring the total number of retail banking branches in Japan to 31 for Citigroup; the largest foreign retail bank presence in the country.
Even so, the overall presence of Citigroup has fallen when they sold a portion of its investment banking division to Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., along with all of its ownership in Nikko Asset Management in order to raise capital to help pay back the $45 billion in taxpayer bailout money they received. The total raised in Japan came to about $11 billion.
Pandit said while recently visiting Japan that its strategy is to build up its Japanese commercial banking services in orer to use it as a springboard to the rest of Asia, which Pandit sees Japan as having a critical role in Asian expansion.
Secondarily Citigroup will provide financial services to Japanese companies who are growing their Asian fingerprint.
