CitiGroup is a global financial company with over 1000 facilities in over 100 countries. It aims to provide banking services to over 2 million clients worldwide. CitiGroup utilizes globalization through adhering to local laws, expanding into new international markets, and maintaining a unified culture and values across locations. It has avoided negative press through complying with anti-terrorism and anti-money laundering policies. CitiGroup also analyzes local economic, political, and cultural factors to develop strategies tailored for each market. It strives to make a positive social impact through initiatives like reducing its environmental footprint internationally.

1. Running head: COMPONENTS OF GLOBALIZATION WITHIN CITIGROUP 1
Citi Around the Globe: The Components of Globalization within CitiGroup
Shanequa R. Williams
Bellevue University

2. COMPONENTS OF GLOBALIZATION WITHIN CITIGROUP 2
Citi Around the Globe: The Components of Globalization within CitiGroup
CitiGroup is a financial based company with over 1000’s of employees located in each of
its facilities in over 100 countries. Its goal is to provide banking and provide financial options
through investments, mortgages, credit cards, personal and auto loans to its 2,000,000 clients.
CitiGroup strives to compete with competitors like Wells Fargo and Bank of America on the
customer service level by identifying the needs of the community it resides in. Part of this effort
in fulfilling the needs of the community involves globalization. Citi highly believes if it can
impact more people around the world positively then Citi’s name will be memorable and
associated with great customer service. The elements of globalization help show the methods Citi
aims to achieve positive community reviews.
Legalities and Globalization
Citi in the past has been known to be associated with financial crisis and bad news
because they are one of the major creditors people flock to therefore making them one of the
more noticeable names in the media. But Citi has since avoided any bad association in the media
and has shifted the way it deals with legal matters to promote themselves in a positive light by
strictly adhering to the laws. Citi firstly supports human rights around the world and has created
a statement of human rights acknowledging the differences in law between other countries. This
statement says there are different strategies in upholding local standards per country and that Citi
overall wants to ensure that the ethical standard is maintained through all of Citi subsidies. The
best statement to encompass their global mission in maintaining the law is,” We seek ways to
promote respect for human rights in a manner consistent with our own global internal policies
and standards while remaining mindful of the local context,” (CitiGroup, 2014). Keeping this
value in mind, Citi has been strict on its local laws to maintain order within the establishments.

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Citi has created policies to prevent anti-terrorism, and anti-money laundering which are frequent
acts committed within the financial services. Citi does so by creating sanctions through the U.S
Treasury department that only allows its entities to work with certain countries. Those countries
excluded would be Burma, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria due to turmoil and high frequency of
illegal acts through these countries. In addition, sanctions have been made to prevent narcotics
trafficking, diamond trading, and non-proliferation through the use of finances via Citi
(Citigroup, 2007). Citi is firm in its values and aims to prevent as many illegal actions as
possible by working with the government to promote good morals.
Citi Economics Around the Globe
Citi has a tendency to have its name heard during financial crisis not only because Citi is
struggling during that timeframe, but because Citi also manages to conquer financial crisis and
come up with feasible strategies to deal with economic changes swiftly to make a profit. All of
Citi’s overall profits include its entirety of global clients. Citi uses globalization as one of three
of its long term secular trends when thinking of its assets alongside urbanization and digitization.
Citi is ahead in the globalization field as it started beginning to expand into different countries
four years ahead of its competitors in 2009. Its global footprint allowed Citi to obtain a profit of
$3.8 billion in its first quarter of 2013 after an economic downturn in 2012. Because of the surge
in profits Citi has aimed to make their goals extremely high to profit more since it has a bigger
client base and aims to use globalization to its advantage (Corbat, 2013). Aside from the
financial success, Citi can be seen to have always participated in new markets and reaching out
globally to better impact its relations. Andrew Gelb (2008) Global Head of Direct Custody and
Hearing of Citi mentioned in 2008 that seven new markets were opened up overseas. Gelb
further states that Citi is geocentric and allows its sister countries to run financial operations thus

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promoting to their financial success. Because Citi is so diverse and allows different cultures to
negotiate deals in other countries and even become figure heads for Citi entities, it has been able
to almost triple its assets over the course of years and have a variety of different views
contributing to upkeeping its finances.
Citi Politics and Globalization. As mentioned before Citi has created policies based on
other governments that affect its overall protocol e.g anti-terrorism. In regards to politics, a lot of
current events have changed Citi’s tactics when creating strategies. A team of global analysts and
strategists of Citi came together in the beginning of 2016 to re-evaluate what is currently
happening in the world and how Citi would deal with such events. They formed a theory that
identified current crisis and plans to navigate around those by catering to clients in a different
approach. Those current complications would be the refugee crisis, terrorism, and developed
market political risk. They believe that there are more flash mob protests, less trust in those with
higher socioeconomic status, income inequality concerns, and support for non-mainstream
parties that affect clients decisions. They believe with these events happening that the banking
and markets will not grow. They are currently working on plans and have not created definite
strategic approaches as more and more turmoil seems to be happening and Citi has to
continuously adapt (Kawa, 2016). Citi like most markets are having to become flexible in
strategies as times change rapidly and new events come into the limelight. Citi has goals and to
conquer whatever comes their way and if they can fluctuate with economic downturn they can
also fluctuate with political happenings as well.
Citi CultureAround the Globe. CEO of CitiGroup, Michael Corbat (2016) once said,
“Maintaining, cultivating, and preserving a diverse and inclusive culture is paramount for us. We
know that diversity of thought, backgrounds, and perspective produce better outcomes for our

5. COMPONENTS OF GLOBALIZATION WITHIN CITIGROUP 5
clients and customers.” This statement upholds the universal values all Citi subsidies must
uphold. While many would think that values would change due to cultural values, in Citi’s book
they do not. The CitiBank in the Czech Republic outlines its values as serving its clients, being a
team player, and acting with integrity (CitiBank Czech, 2016). The CitiBank in Jordan outlines
its values as responsibility to the clients, responsibility to each other, and responsibility to the
franchise (CitiBank Jordan, 2016). As you can see company culture transcends geographic
location. No matter the location you can see the similarities in values that Citi represents. But
aside from the values different geographic locations maintain, Citi reaches out to the community
in a variety of different ways. One of the more notable ways Citi has reached out to communities
in different countries is via sustainable energy. Citi has assessed environmental and social risk
management in several countries and has collaborated with peers and clients to elevate the
environmental and social standards. Citi aims to reduce its footprint all over the world and reach
out to a new clientele. So far through its initiative it has reduced its emissions at a rate of 9.67%
every year and its water and waste usage by 30% (CitiGroup, 2015). Citi is actually reaching out
and making a physical change for their brand rather than just making statements and temporary
change. Their plans for change in geographic areas and understanding the communities they are
in are long term and they seek to gain the approval of a society before making remarks on their
impact.
Conclusion. Citi heavily indulges in the countries its company resides in. Citi does it
research and has knowledge of what is going on legally, economically, politically, and culturally.
They utilize this knowledge to make an impact. They live by the motto, “Be here now!” which
emphasizes the role their strategies play in the structure of the company. Being here now means
make a change now, not later. It means being involved now and not later. Citi is a rapid force to

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be reckoned with and its financial competitors have a lot of catching up to do it gain the positive
image that Citi has in regards to globalization. (Williams, 2016)

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References
CitiBank Czech. (2016). CitiBank from Another Angle. Retrieved from
http://www.citibank.com/czech/gcb/personal_banking/english/footer/citi_inak.htm
CitiBank Jordan. (2016). Why Work for Us? Retrieved from
http://www.citi.com/jordan/homepage/ww_us.htm
CitiGroup. (2007). Regulatory Compliance and Trade 2007. Retrieved from
http://www.citigroup.com/transactionservices/home/trade_svcs/trade_u/docs/regcomp_0
213.pdf?lid=regcompengpdf
CitiGroup. (2014, April). Statement of Human Rights. Retrieved from
http://www.citigroup.com/citi/citizen/data/citi_statement_on_human_rights.pdf
CitiGroup. (2015). Sustainable Progress Citi’s Five-Year Sustainability Strategy. Retrieved
from
http://www.citigroup.com/citi/environment/data/Corporate_Sustainability_Strategy.pdf
Corbat, M. (2013, April). Remarks by CEO Michael Corbat at Citi's 2013 Annual Meeting.
Retrieved from http://www.citigroup.com/citi/news/executive/130424Ea.htm
Corbat, M. (n.d.). CEO Message. Retrieved from citi.com/citi/about/citizenship/ceo-
statement.html
Gelb, A. (2008). On the Move. Retrieved from
https://www.citibank.com/mss/about_us/articles/docs/2008/icfa_feb08.pdf
Kawa, L. (2016, January 19). Citigroup: There's a Whole New Type of Political Risk to Worry
About - Bloomberg. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-
19/citigroup-there-s-a-whole-new-type-of-political-risk-to-worry-about

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