Separation between Citibanamex’s retail and wholesale banking businesses prepared

While the sales process continues Banamex by its current owner, the American Citigroup -in which two players would remain (Grupo México and Mifel), in addition to not ruling out the option of the Public Offering of Shares (OPA)-, internally they are working on the preparations to carry out the separation between retail and wholesale banking.

“Internally we are advancing in the preparations to carry out the technological and operational separation between the consumer and business bankingand corporate and investment banking,” said Manuel Romo, general director of the institution, in a meeting with the media on Monday.

When affirming that the stages of the sale process are going in a timely manner, he clarified, however, that it is a technologically complex transition to separate a financial group that has been united within the Citigroup platforms for more than 20 years.

“The technological platform, the processes (…) everything is managed as a single bank,” he explained.

Today the Citibanamex Financial Group It is made up of the bank, which includes the wholesale and retail businesses, but also the Afore, the insurance business, and the brokerage house, among others.

Romo commented that after the technological separation, a certification is coming to determine that the two banks can operate correctly.

According to the director of the bank, in the first quarter of 2023 the final decision on the sale of Banamex would be made known, and it would not be until 2024 when it is delivered to the new owner.

from the big banks

The director of Citibanamex stressed that once the processes were completed, there would be two very large banks: Banco Nacional de México with the consumer and business part, and Citigroup -with a new banking license- with the corporate and investment part.

It should be remembered that it was recently announced that Citigroup purchased the banking license from Deutsche Bank Mexico. Although the corresponding authorization is missing, Manuel Romo stressed that this was intended to expedite the process, since trying to obtain it from scratch would have taken more time.

In the case of Citigroup, it would serve different lines of business with its corporate and investment banking in the country, such as: multinational companies in need of capital or structured debt; those that are growing outside of Mexico; banks, fintech and private banking franchise individuals, who are the highest net worth. Today, all this is done from Citibanamex.

Manuel Romo has highlighted that, along with the sale process, Citibanamex remains one of the main financial groups -the third, according to official information-, with the second most important deposit base in the system, and in the same place in the item of payments; as well as a leader in the investment funds market.

“We resumed growth in the main circuits of consumer and business credit,” he said.

He added: “We are fully confident that we will successfully conclude the divestment process of the consumer banking and business banking businesses, so that in the end we will deliver two banks perfectly ready to operate and be leaders in their respective segments”.