Citi’s credit-card chief to exit in consumer bank shake-up

Bloomberg

Citigroup Inc. is restructuring its consumer-banking operation in a shake-up that includes the departure of its global credit-card chief.
Judson Linville, who ran the world’s largest portfolio of credit-card loans, is leaving as the bank merges that business with its wealth and retail units in the US, according to an
internal memo from Stephen Bird, who leads Citigroup’s global consumer bank.
Bird’s changes bring to the US a model he oversaw while running the company’s Asia operations, before he was appointed to his current role in 2015. The bank often chooses Asia to test new consumer offerings such as branches and digital products. North America consumer revenue growth slowed to 1 percent last quarter from 4 percent in the previous three months, and Citigroup has struggled to meet targets for its US branded-card business.
“This action aligns the US franchise with the regional model deployed in Asia and Mexico, where we have seen the benefits of cross-product synergies, greater collaboration and accelerated speed-to-market and decision-making,” Bird said in the memo.
Citigroup makes almost half its revenue from the consumer bank, and about 60 percent of that comes from the US. The lender has renewed its focus on the consumer business in recent months, announcing plans earlier this year to debut a national digital banking product in the US.
Year-over-year revenue growth from the consumer operations slowed in the second quarter across the unit’s three main regions — North America, Latin America and Asia, compared with the first three months of the year.
Still, about two-thirds of Citigroup’s future revenue growth is expected to come from consumer operations in Asia and Mexico as well as its branded-cards business, according to analysts at Portales Partners.
The bank’s Mexico operations—known locally as Citibanamex—are the largest in the country by deposits and have the leading share of banking relationships there, according to the company.