Letter to Shareholders
Dear Shareholders,
As I reflect on the changes we have made at Citi over the past several years, one fact is clear: today, we are a fundamentally different bank — simpler, more focused, and fully aligned with what our stakeholders expect of us.
Since our Investor Day in 2022, we have taken decisive action to make Citi the preeminent banking partner for institutions with cross-border needs, a global leader in wealth management and a valued personal bank in our home market. We have set a clear vision, simplified our operations, sharpened and executed our strategy, and positioned ourselves to drive consistently stronger financial performance and higher returns.
Here are just some of the key steps we have taken to strengthen our ability to deliver for all stakeholders:
We have focused our business mix. Our focus is now around five interconnected businesses — Services, Markets, Banking, Wealth and U.S. Personal Banking — each with a clear path to accelerating growth, gaining share and increasing returns. As part of focusing our business mix, we continue to make progress with the divestitures of our international consumer franchises, with all either completed or moving towards completion. In 2024, we passed a major milestone when we successfully separated Banamex into a new entity, an important step towards its eventual IPO and a testament to our ability to get the hard things done.
We have strengthened connectivity between our businesses. The natural linkages between our businesses have always been a strength, and today we are maximizing those connections. All parts of the firm are working more closely together to bring the full power of Citi to our clients. Our Retail Banking business, for instance, is an important source of referrals and deposits for our Wealth business. Meanwhile, Services and Markets work together to provide seamless foreign exchange solutions to help clients optimize their global financial operations.
We have shifted our priority to improving returns. With the changes to our business mix and the emphasis on increasing the synergies between our five businesses, our focus is squarely on growing returns. Our senior leaders are assessed based on how well our businesses are increasing returns rather than revenues, and we have increased their alignment with shareholders by delivering a greater portion of compensation in Citi stock. While we have changed our Return on Tangible Common Equity (RoTCE) target for 2026 to between 10% and 11%1, which is slightly lower than our previous goal, let me be clear that this is not our final destination. We absolutely have the ambition to grow our returns further over time, and we will hold ourselves accountable every step of the way.
We have changed how we run the bank. With our organizational simplification behind us, the heads of our five businesses are at my table, fully engaged in how we run the bank and in the critical decisions we make every day. Senior management is closer to our clients so they can deliver the full firm to them. Decision-making is faster, our teams are more agile, and we can move more quickly for all our stakeholders.
We have invested heavily in our infrastructure. As part of our enterprise-wide Transformation, we have enhanced governance, overhauled our risk management structures, automated processes and controls, and embedded accountability throughout the firm. And we are not stopping there. The vast amounts of data we have as a global bank can be a true competitive resource for us, and we are making the necessary investments in data governance and quality to make that happen.
We have raised the bar on what we expect from ourselves. To strengthen accountability and a culture of excellence, we have revamped our scorecards to ensure we are always delivering for clients. Our new structure enables our people to partner consistently across our businesses and geographies. We have also attracted top industry talent, including new leadership in Banking, Wealth and Technology, who are driving greater intensity around delivering results.
Momentum is building
With these foundations in place, we are laser-focused on our two priorities — improving our business performance and executing the Transformation.
In 2024, each of our five businesses delivered solid results, including record revenues for Services, Wealth and U.S. Personal Banking. As a firm, we delivered $81.1 billion in revenues in 2024, our highest since 2010. We also delivered positive operating leverage for the firm overall, as well as in every one of our five businesses. Cost of credit remained elevated, but in line with our expectations. Net income was $12.7 billion, up 37% from the prior year.
We returned nearly $7 billion in capital to our common shareholders, and our RoTCE was 7%2 , a 210-basis point improvement from the prior year. Additionally, we announced a $20 billion multiyear common stock repurchase program, demonstrating our commitment to return excess capital to our shareholders.
Services continued to outperform the competition, delivering another year of record revenue as a result of new mandates and our emphasis on fee growth. For the full year, revenues for the business grew 9%, with both Treasury & Trade Solutions and Securities Services continuing to gain market share. Our focus in the business remains on investing in the client experience and enhancing our technology to deepen client relationships. In 2024, we expanded our position as the leading global bank for cross-border payments as we connected our network with Mastercard’s vast debit network.
Markets delivered another strong performance, closing out the year with its best fourth quarter in a decade. Full-year revenues increased 6%, fueled by strong growth in Equities, which had its highest annual revenue in a decade. Our fully integrated trading and securitization capabilities continue to enhance our competitive position; there is no other financial institution that can match the product breadth and geographic reach Citi offers corporate and investor clients.
Banking, which includes Investment Banking, Corporate Banking and Commercial Banking, also had a strong year. We gained share across all three Investment Banking products — equity capital markets, debt capital markets and M&A — driving a 32% increase in revenues for our Banking business. We continued to play a leading role in the most transformative deals, including Mars’ acquisition of Kellanova, the year’s largest announced M&A transaction. We also struck an innovative $25 billion private credit partnership with Apollo that significantly expands our offering.
Wealth continues to focus on growing its investments business, optimizing its expense base and improving the client experience. Those efforts are paying off: last year was a turning point for the business as revenues increased 7% from the prior year and net new investment assets grew 40%. We attracted top talent throughout the year to lead our Wealth team. As we look ahead, there is tremendous potential with existing clients across Citi, and we are leaning into it.
U.S. Personal Banking continued to experience strong momentum, with the demand for borrowing driving strong revenue growth across both cards businesses. For the full year, revenues rose 6%. We launched several exciting products in Branded Cards, including the enhanced Citi Strata Premier Card and Citi Shop browser. We also extended and expanded our iconic co-branded partnership with American Airlines for another decade. In Retail Services, we successfully launched a private label Dillard’s credit card and a co-branded Dillard’s Mastercard. Additionally, we converted four million customers to our Simplified Banking platform in the U.S., demonstrating our commitment to providing more seamless experiences for our customers.
Modernizing how we operate
Our strategy is producing results, but we are not standing still. We are driving the next wave of innovation to ensure Citi stays ahead of what our clients need from their banking partner.
We believe generative AI can drive a fundamental shift in how we work. We have equipped our developers with sophisticated tools to write code and launched two AI platforms that are boosting efficiency for more than 140,000 of our colleagues. We are also integrating AI directly into our business operations to help us make smarter decisions, deliver insights even faster and improve client experiences. We are determined to build one of the industry’s first AI-ready workforces, and we are well on our way.
At the same time, we are modernizing Citi’s infrastructure for the long term. This includes enhancing and automating controls, digitizing processes, streamlining our tech platforms and strengthening risk management. Our firm’s number one priority is our Transformation. But it is not just about remediating the 2020 Consent Orders — it is about addressing decades of underinvestment, strengthening our foundations, and ensuring Citi is resilient and ready to lead in a digital-first world.
While we advanced key areas of the Transformation in 2024, not all our deliverables were completed on time, as the July regulatory enforcement actions reinforced. Specifically, we did not make enough progress in our data quality management and in other areas such as regulatory reporting. These events led to a meaningful reduction in the third and final tranche of our Transformation bonus program, which was designed to incentivize collective accountability for improving the firm’s risk management, controls and culture.
Although setbacks like this are disappointing, we will not make excuses nor let them distract us from the work that must get done. Consequently, we have reviewed our entire data program, retooled its governance and increased our investments in technology and talent to ensure we meet our obligations. We will continue to focus our resources where needed and are committed to spending whatever it takes to get this critical work done and done right.
Ready for a new era of opportunity
While our firm is evolving, what won’t change is what has always made Citi indispensable to clients: our unparalleled global network, our deep expertise, and the relationships built over more than 200 years of us advising the most important institutions.
Today, we are seeing a new global dynamic — one shaped by rapid technological advancement, shifting trade flows, and a reconfiguration of economic power. While uncertainty remains a constant, the forces of innovation, entrepreneurship and resilience are creating extraordinary opportunities for our clients. With our global reach and perspective, Citi is uniquely positioned to help them navigate and capitalize on these opportunities.
One of the biggest game-changers is AI, which is poised to transform industries much in the same way that previous technological leaps, including the personal computer and the internet, once did. Around the world, AI is catalyzing major investments in the infrastructure and energy that is required to support the revolution ahead.
At the same time, we see many clients investing to decarbonize their business models. Balancing sustainability while ensuring the world’s current energy needs are met requires significant investment and innovation, and Citi is financing the infrastructure and clean energy solutions that will support this transition and the increased energy demand.
Breakthroughs in health care and life sciences are also accelerating and bringing us closer to treatments and cures for cancer and other diseases. Citi is playing a key role in channeling the capital to fuel this progress, connecting investors with companies driving this innovation.
We also continue to play an important role in the changing nature of globalization. On a local level, Citi is a growth engine for many communities around the world, helping finance critical infrastructure, supporting businesses and households in their journeys to prosperity, and promoting broader access to financial services.
On a macro level, we serve as a backbone to the global financial system and an enabler of the global economy, which is increasingly tilting towards the United States. The U.S.’s unmatched capital market strength and entrepreneurship, combined with ongoing challenges in Europe and China, have continued to make it an attractive destination for greater investment. And with the U.S. currently at the center of gravity, it is clear that multinational companies will need an American-based bank with a truly global footprint such as Citi to succeed.
As we look at the rapidly evolving world around us, we can say with confidence that we are ready for it. We have strategic clarity and focus, have simplified our organization, are modernizing our infrastructure and are investing in our talent. We are doing exactly what we said we would.
We are entering a new era — one where our focus, innovation and excellence will set us apart. We are moving forward with a clear sense of purpose and the confidence to turn ambition into action. The world is changing fast, but Citi is changing faster. We are not just keeping pace with the future; we are helping to shape it.
[1] As used herein, 2026 RoTCE is a forward-looking non-GAAP financial measure. From time to time, management may discuss forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures, such as forwardlooking estimates or targets for revenue, expenses and RoTCE. Citi is unable to provide a reconciliation of forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures because Citi is unable to provide, without unreasonable effort, a meaningful or accurate calculation or estimation of amounts that would be necessary for the reconciliation due to the complexity and inherent difficulty in forecasting and quantifying future amounts or when they may occur. Such unavailable information could be significant for future results.
[2] RoTCE is a non-GAAP financial measure. RoTCE represents annualized net income available to common shareholders as a percentage of average TCE. For a reconciliation to reported results, please see page 49 of Citi’s 2024 Form 10-K.