Citi

Overview / Commentary

online.citi.com

605-331-2626

5800 S Corporate Place
Sioux Falls, SD 57108

Citi, also known as Citibank, is one of the world’s largest financial institutions, with over a trillion dollars worth of assets. It features a wide scope of business operations, from small business and commercial banking, to credit cards and investment vehicles. Its personal banking options feature standard products like checking, savings, and money market accounts, as well as certificates of deposits. The bank also features services that are unique to Citi and offer customers intuitive means of managing their deposit accounts.

Citi’s checking account offerings differ by account requirements and benefits. It has a student account that has no monthly fees and comes free ATM use, and its premium account offers free financial advice from a Citi expert. Each checking account is part of the bank’s reward program that offers ways for customers to earn points that can be redeemed for various merchandise or travel rewards. Citi’s savings account options feature a basic savings account with no monthly fees when a minimum daily balance is kept, and a money market account that offers increased rates of interest as the account balance grows. CDs and IRA CDs give customers guaranteed interest rates and are available in term lengths from 3 months to 5 years. Citi regularly features special offers connected to various deposit accounts, from bonus reward points to cash back incentives.

Citi online banking is free and makes account management easy for customers. From bill payment to money transfers to account alerts, Citi’s Internet banking platform offers great functionality. Its smartphone and tablet apps make banking on the go convenient and offer nice user interfaces. Citi’s sophisticated financial tools also provide a means for customers to analyze expenses, create budgets, track their net worth, and set bill reminders. The bank operates its own ATM network of over 26,000 ATMs located across the United States and in 40 countries.

Citi has more than 200 years of history behind its name, being originally established in New York City as the First National City Bank in 1812. It is a subsidiary of CitiGroup, which is a company that operates numerous trusts and funds under its umbrella. The bank changed its name to CitiBank in 1976 moved to its current headquarters in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in 2011.

Citibank Unresponsive - 4/13/2020

Citibank was promoting their Priority Accounts and a $700 bonus for depositing $50K within 30 days of opening. Applied on-line and 1 week later received 1 letter that checking account was opened. For the next 3 weeks was told by their customer service that welcome package, debit card, PIN, and savings account number were "in the mail". Never received any of it despite many calls to them. Not even instructions on how to fund the account(s). After 4 weeks, sent them a letter telling them to close accounts (if they were even opened). Will never put any of my money in "Citi" would probably not even be able to get it out. They lie and have no idea what they are doing. Even had their customer service hang up on me when asking about my supposed accounts. Telling anyone I know, not to deal with them. THE WORST!

Citi - Offers Cash Bonus For New Checking/Savings Accounts - 1/30/2020

Offer 1/1 to 3/31/2020 Cash bonus: $200, $400, $500, $700 or $1,500, depending on the Account Package you select. (Scroll to the bottom for a table of the cash bonus options to choose from to click "See Offer Terms and Conditions") Minimum balance must be kept for 60 days to get cash bonus. ""Eligible Customers" are New-to-Citibank Checking Customers who have not been a signer on a Citibank checking account within the past 180 days." https://banking.citi.com/cbol/checking-700/default.htm?Promo_ID=4FWVDEFPBWCHP7&intc=1~1~52~6~BANR~2~CheckQ419_700SA~HP&BT_TX=1&ProspectID=7FAD1E2171C04023BB9C20F01EC85F6F

Citi Accelerate Savings @2.05% APY Is NOT Available In FL - 12/12/2019

Sadly it appears the 2.05% APY via the Accelerate Savings account is not available in States where Citi has branches. It surely isn't available in Florida but is available in Texas.

View all posts from:

2020
2019
2018
Earlier

4/13 - Citibank Unresponsive
1/30 - Citi - Offers Cash Bonus For New Checking/Savings Accounts

12/12 - Citi Accelerate Savings @2.05% APY Is NOT Available In FL

12/11 - Earn Up To $600 When Opening A Checking And Savings Acct.
6/6 - Citibank’s New Attempt at a High Yield Online Savings Account
5/14 - Review of the Latest Citibank Checking Bonus Offers - Up to $600
4/17 - Citi Offering A 2% APY 13 Mo CD, $25K Minimum
4/6 - New 1.35% APY 3 Mo Savings Acct Promo
1/25 - Florida Citibank 30 Mo CD Special Is 1.51% APY, $10K Min

Reviews (155)

Banking with Citi as a student was simple

Posted by: Canesti | May 23, 2018

I banked with Citibank while I was a foreign student in New York City. I used the account to receive money from my parents who were not in the US. Citibank charged reasonable exchange rate and wire transfer fees. As a student, they allowed me to open a checking/ savings account with no minimum account balance required. They also provided me with free check books that really came in handy. After I graduated, I used Citibank to send money back to my Citibank account based in my home country to pay back a loan. Citibank never revoked my student status so I never felt the pressure to maintain a high account balance. When I did transfer funds internationally, I simply walked into a nearby Citibank branch and was always greeted by friendly bank employees. I have always had a good experience with Citibank.

Comment

Citi Bank W9 Form Submitting Process

Posted by: Hiyeld | Oct 26, 2019

This is the Citi specialty - form W9.
I don't remember W9 form for a requirement from any other banks or unions so far.
The process of submitting the form is taking already around four weeks. Mailed with a welcome kit envelope and faxed to a provided number. Checked a status - not on file. Mailed again to another provided address and faxed to another number. Checked the status - not on file. Called to local office numerous times - busy signal and instantaneous route to a call center. The same result if you choose a different language. I will drive to their local office. My hope is - they will allow to fill W9 form in the office. The bank immediately started withdraw Federal tax as it seen on my first statement from the Citi bank. I will update my review next week after my visit to their local branch.
I drove today to a local office. It took less than 5 minutes to fill out a new W9 form. Nice, efficient and helpful representatives in the local office.

Comment

Beware Transfer Limits On Savings Accounts

Posted by: Roadking765 | Aug 3, 2020

Opened Accelerate Savings account to take advantage of better rate. Citi doesn't make you aware of a policy that is not readily apparent that limits your transfers out of the account to $10,000 on a daily basis and $15,000 in a 30 day period. If your going to fund this account with a small savings balance that is no problem...but if you want to fund a larger amount your money is tied up and it may take a very long time to reduce your balance (short of closing the entire account and waiting for your money). Also, signing up was more laborious than any other bank I've ever dealt with. Make sure to unfreeze your credit report if it's frozen or you will get immediate denial of an account.
Lastly, the customer service is in generally slow via phone or chat.
Bottom line, strongly discourage you from opening an account with Citi for anything but their credit cards...I have their Costco Visa card and am OK with their web site for that card. Better to look at Marcus, Synchrony, or Ally

Comment

Terrible treatment

Posted by: veronicak5678 | Jul 29, 2020

I’m writing about the experience of my 97-year-old grandmother. She needed a checking account so I opened one with Citibank for her online. I provided her land line, my cell phone, and my email address. She’s never used a computer and wanted me to take care of all the online banking. We would have opened a joint account but that requires you to go into a branch in person, something neither of us was willing to do during the massive Coronavirus outbreak here in LA since I’m a Type I diabetic and she’s old as dirt.
We never got a card or pin in the mail but didn’t think we really needed it since we had an account number and she got a checkbook. She transferred every penny she has into this account. A few days after this she went to stay with her sister in another town because of her failing health. Immediately we started running into problems with them wanting to call her house and give a pin every time we tried to do anything. They wouldn’t use my cell phone or my email or verify us any other way and didn’t care that she wasn’t home. We had to resort to arranging a time her neighbor could go into her apartment and answer the phone to text me a code whenever we wanted to send $20.
I spent many hours with Customer Service during this time explaining why this was a problem, but everyone told me a different thing. One person told me this verification business would go on for two weeks, another told me two months, another told me it was indefinite. One told me that it would stop once I activated the card and, when I said I already had, told me I had to get a new card and activate it again. We ordered a new card, waited for it to arrive activated it, but nothing changed. Another CSR told me we needed a pin and then this would stop, but we requested a pin be sent out three separate times and for some reason never got a single one. I finally got one to set up a pin with me on the phone, but again nothing changed. At one point a CSR told me she had opened a case for me and that the “higher ups” would be in touch to help, but the next guy told me that’s not even something they do. My grandmother and I were hung up on more times than I can recall, and not just when we were being nasty. It’s like they’re all trained to just hang up on you when they get tired of talking to you.
At their suggestion, I also went through a massive amount of hassle to get external accounts verified with trial deposits so we could make online transfers, but they blocked every single one. Later they told me it’s because the external accounts were not hers, which of course was the point of having external accounts linked in the first place. They also suggested I added ‘payees” and then I would be able to make wire transfers for free, but after going through that whole maddening process I learned that there’s a $25 fee every time you want to do that.
As bad as all this was, it got much worse last week when I got an email out of the blue saying that the User ID had been blocked and I had to call to unblock it. When I called they told me they couldn’t help us unless we had someone at her house answer the phone to get the stupid code, so we had to wait days until her neighbor could go back and await their call. That day we set up a time when I could take an hour off work and the neighbor could too and called them up, just to be told that they couldn’t call with a code after all. This time they told me we had to go back to the house and call from the land line. I explained that we were out of town and couldn’t go back just to use that phone, but every single employee I talked to just told me they wouldn’t do anything else. During this time, we couldn’t pay bills, couldn’t pay employees, and were racking up late charges and overdraft fees all over because Citibank wouldn’t let us use our money.
We had no choice but to pack up and go back to grandma’s house just to use the phone. This is all very difficult for her since she can barely move and we don’t have a car, but they would give us no other options so we packed up all her things and her wheelchair and got a very expensive Uber ride. When we got back yesterday and tried calling I was told they had to verify by calling me back on that number. So I hung up and waited twenty minutes. I called again and explained that no one had called me back just to be told that since it was “in the works” with that guy no one else could help me. After an hour I really had to get back to work so I called yet again and went through all the rigmarole of the system and being on hold for twenty minutes and being transferred back and forth for the third time, finally to end up being told by one of the managers that they can’t verify us over the phone at all anymore and that grandma has to go into a bank with two forms of ID.
She does not have two forms of ID. She does not have a car. She’s 97 and it’s painful for her to get to the bathroom, let alone into a bank. She’s in the group with the absolute highest risk of dying of Covid (I’m in the second) and we’re in the highest-risk cities in the US. I told this to so many CSR’s, explaining that they’re literally asking us to risk our lives before they’ll give us access to the account, and were repeatedly hung up on. Not to mention that many of their branches are closed because of the pandemic and we’ll have to go miles away. We don’t know what else to do, so tomorrow I have to take yet another day off of work, get another extremely expensive Uber ride, sit in LA traffic for an hour, go inside a bank and risk our lives, probably just to be told that she needs a passport or something before they’ll give her her money.
I honestly feel like they’re putting her in an early grave. I’ve never seen her so stressed out and I’ve felt like I’m having a mild heart attack for about two weeks straight. She was actually crying on the phone with them yesterday and they hung up on her. I tried to make this as succinct as possible and, long though it is, it doesn’t even go into all the problems we’ve had just trying to use a simple checking account.

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Health

Data as of Q1 2020

Learn why bank health matters

Health Grade Components

Overall
FDIC Certificate #	7213
Year Established	1812
Employees	159897
Primary Regulator	OCC

Profit Margin
Return on Assets - YTD	0.49%
Return on Equity - YTD	5.06%
Annual Interest Income	$13.88B

Assets and Liabilities
Assets	Q1 2020vs Q1 2019	$1,632.4B$1,430.1B
Loans	Q1 2020vs Q1 2019	$676.3B$638.6B
Deposits	Q1 2020vs Q1 2019	$1,208.8B$1,054.9B
Equity Capital	Q1 2020vs Q1 2019	$151.9B$149.2B
Loan Loss Allowance	Q1 2020vs Q1 2019	$18.73B$10.65B
Unbacked Noncurrent Loans	Q1 2020vs Q1 2019	$5.70B$5.00B
Real Estate Owned	Q1 2020vs Q1 2019	$42.0MM$89.0MM

APY	MIN	MAX	ACCOUNT NAME
0.60%^*^†	$25k^*	-	High Yield Checking
OTHER TIERS: 0.20% → Up to $10k \| 0.30% → $10k - $25k
0.60%^*^†	$25k^*	-	Interest Checking - Citi Elevate
OTHER TIERS: 0.20% → Up to $10k \| 0.30% → $10k - $25k
0.03%^†	-	-	Interest Checking - Citigold
0.03%^†	$50k	-	Checking Account
0.01%^†	-	-	Interest Checking Account

APY	MIN	MAX	ACCOUNT NAME
0.40%^†	$1k	-	4 Month CD
0.25%^†	$1k	-	3 Month CD
0.25%^†	$1k	-	5 Month CD
0.25%^†	$1k	-	1 Year CD
0.25%^†	$1k	-	5 Year CD
0.20%^†	$1k	-	18 Month CD
0.20%^†	$1k	-	2 Year CD
0.20%^†	$1k	-	3 Year CD
0.20%^†	$1k	-	4 Year CD
0.20%^†	$500	-	12 Month No Penalty CD
0.17%^†	$500	-	30 Month Step Up CD
0.10%^†	$1k	-	6 Month CD
0.10%^†	$1k	-	7 Month CD
0.10%^†	$1k	-	8 Month CD
0.10%^†	$1k	-	9 Month CD
0.10%^†	$1k	-	10 Month CD
0.10%^†	$1k	-	30 Month CD
0.10%^†	$1k	-	13 Month CD
0.10%^†	$1k	-	14 Month CD
0.10%^†	$1k	-	15 Month CD
0.10%^†	$1k	-	11 Month CD

Citi

Related Posts

Banking with Citi as a student was simple

Citi Bank W9 Form Submitting Process

Beware Transfer Limits On Savings Accounts

Terrible treatment

Data as of Q1 2020

Health Grade Components

Citi Savings Account Rates

Citi Checking Account Rates

Citi CD Rates

Availability

Miami Area