Comments on: Citibank’s deinternationalization

By: Strych09

Strych09 — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 00:33:20 +0000

Hey, all you people who are “part of the international cosmopolitan classes”. I have a suggestion. Next time your “global” bank needs a multi-billion dollar bailout due to poor management decision-making, please chip in amongst yourselves and provide the needed funding.

It would be great if you didn’t rely on U.S. taxpayers and the U.S. central bank, the latter of which has no legal mandate to supply liquidity to “the international cosmopolitan” financial system.

By: fresnodan

fresnodan — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 10:58:08 +0000

“The potential problem here for Citi is that while the cost-benefit analysis undoubtedly makes a lot of sense on a branch-by-branch basis, there are second-order network-effect and reputational consequences which are much harder to quantify.”

Uh, how about starting with the idea that save for being saved by US taxpayers, it was insolvent. It was insolvent because at the most fundamental level, bankers didn’t know what they were doing.

“If those depositors were rational, they would have moved their money somewhere much safer. But they didn’t: Citi’s storied history and massive international branch network helped to reassure them that their money was safe, even when it really wasn’t.”

??? Given that, we need Citibank to continue??? Maybe they knew about TBTF – but the last thing the world needs are inept bankers remaining TBTF.

By: crocodilechuck

crocodilechuck — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 04:39:57 +0000

“… and the only area where Citibank is clearly superior to nearly all of its competitors is in its history and international reach”

Uh, Felix, ‘C’ also has a cash management product that hundreds of global corporations use to park their funds every night. That’s where a lot of its $773B of deposits come from.

By: NEBTT

NEBTT — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 20:11:11 +0000

Economist, CitiBank, and maybe a Baskin Robbins is what I look for when abroad.