Citigroup Q1 2023 Earnings Report

Citigroup EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $2.19
• Consensus EPS: $1.66
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.53
• One Year Ago EPS: $2.02

Citigroup Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $21.40 billion
• Expected Revenue: $20.07 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$1.33 billion
• YoY Revenue Growth: +11.50%

Citigroup Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2023
• Date: 4/14/2023
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Friday, April 14, 2023
• Conference Call Time: 11:00AM ET

Citigroup (NYSE:C) is a global financial services company headquartered in New York City with roots tracing back to the City Bank of New York, founded in 1812. The modern Citigroup was created through the 1998 merger of Citicorp and Travelers Group and has since operated as a diversified bank holding company that provides a broad range of banking and financial products and services to consumers, corporations, governments and institutions worldwide.

Citi’s principal businesses include retail and commercial banking, credit card and consumer lending products, wealth management and private banking, and a full suite of institutional services. On the institutional side, the firm offers investment banking, capital markets and advisory services, sales and trading, treasury and trade solutions, and securities services. For individual customers it provides deposit accounts, mortgages, personal loans, and one of the largest global credit card businesses, supported by digital banking platforms and payment solutions.

The company maintains a global footprint and serves clients in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions, with significant operations across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and the Asia-Pacific region. This international network supports cross-border flows, corporate financing and transaction banking for multinational clients, while consumer and small-business operations are concentrated in selected markets where Citi has established retail franchises.

Citigroup is led by Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser, who became CEO in 2021. As a regulated bank holding company, Citi operates under oversight from U.S. and international banking regulators and has in recent years undertaken strategic initiatives to simplify its structure, strengthen risk management and invest in digital capabilities. The firm’s combination of global scale, diversified business lines and extensive cross-border infrastructure positions it as a major participant in global finance.

Citigroup Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Citi reported Q1 net income of $4.6 billion and EPS of $2.19, with revenues up 6% excluding divestitures and a ROTCE near 11%, reflecting solid operating performance.
• Treasury & Trade Solutions revenue surged 31% and Security Services grew 23% on higher rates and cross-border flows, while fixed-income trading delivered its third-best quarter in a decade.
• The bank holds over $1 trillion in available liquidity resources, including $584 billion of HQLA and a 120% LCR, backed by a diversified $1.3 trillion deposit base that management deems “sticky.”
• Credit metrics remain sound with $20 billion of reserves (2.7% of funded loans), normalizing net credit losses in cards, and 85% of institutional loan exposure rated investment grade.
• Citi’s CET1 ratio stands at 13.4% with a 100 bp internal buffer, and management will decide on future buybacks or capital returns each quarter amid ongoing divestitures and macro uncertainty.

Presentation

[Operator]

Hello, welcome to Citi's first quarter 2023 earnings review with the Chief Executive Officer, Jane Fraser, and Chief Financial Officer, Mark Mason. Today's call will be hosted by Jenn Landis, Head of Citi Investor Relations. We ask that you please hold all questions until the completion of the formal remarks, at which time you'll be given instructions for the question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. Ms. Landis, you may begin.

[Jenn Landis, Head of Investor Relations at Citi]

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us. I'd like to remind you that today's presentation, which is available for download on our website, citigroup.com, may contain forward-looking statements, which are based on management's current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Actual results may differ materially from these statements due to a variety of factors, including those described in our SEC filing. With that, I'll turn it over to Jane.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

Thank you, Jenn, and hello to everyone joining us today. Well, 2023 is shaping up to be another interesting year. Given the tumultuous events of the last few weeks, I'm going to share some observations, and then we'll turn to what was a good quarter. First, our banking system as a whole is very strong. While a small handful of institutions still have challenges to overcome, the U.S. financial system remains unmatched globally. I feel confident saying that as someone who has worked in many different systems around the world. The U.S. system comprises a healthy mix of community banks, regional banks, and larger global banks, including Citi. We all have important but different roles to play, serving different clients with different needs and on different scales.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

I would also point to the rapid response by state, federal, and international regulators to help reinforce confidence in the system at a very critical juncture. I'm pleased that Citi has been a source of stability for the financial system and a source of strength for our clients. That's not an accident. We are in a position to play this role because our strategy is delivering a simpler, more focused bank. We benefit from a diversified earnings base and resilient business model. This is reinforced by our robust balance sheet management, liquidity position, and strong risk management frameworks. We are disciplined in how we run the firm, from client selection to capital planning. It's also thanks to our people.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

I want to express my pride in our colleagues around the world who worked tirelessly last month to serve clients as they turn to Citi as a port in the storm. Recent events have shown that prudent Asset and Liability Management is absolutely paramount. While Mark is gonna walk you through our approach and our focus on interest rate risk, liquidity, and capital, I do want to mention a few things myself. In terms of assets, our loans are high quality and short duration. We have highly liquid investment securities and a significant amount of cash. We have over $1 trillion worth of available liquidity resources, including $584 billion of HQLA and an LCR of 120%.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

We maintain a diverse set of funding sources, including over $1.3 trillion of deposits across corporates, consumers, industries, and regions, many of which are operational in nature. Indeed, the cornerstone is our institutional deposit base, which comprises about 60% of our deposits. Most of these deposits are particularly sticky because they sit in operating accounts that fully integrated into how our multinational clients run their businesses around the world, from their payrolls to their supply chains, their cash and liquidity management. 80% of these deposits are with clients who use all three of our integrated services, Payments and Collections, Liquidity Management, and Working Capital Solutions. The data that we aggregate from these deposits and their related flows is fundamental to how our clients manage their efficiency, risk, and compliance. This greatly increases our deposit stickiness.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

It's also why nearly 80% of these deposits are from client relationships that are 15 years old or more. We operate a strong risk framework that looks at both assets and liability concentrations across client segments, industry and region, and we're confident in the size and nature of our exposures, given our very rigorous stress testing. We also diligently manage counterparty risk, which is critical given the interconnectedness of financial institutions. We are in a strong position to navigate whatever environment we face, which is particularly relevant given the degree of uncertainty today. The Fed continues to use rate policy to battle inflation, which has been more than stubborn in services even as we see signs of cooling in labor and manufacturing.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

We expect the recent events to be disinflationary and credit to contract. We believe it's now more likely that the U.S. will enter into a shallow recession later this year. That could be exacerbated in depth and duration in a more severe credit crunch. Right now, the biggest unknown is the impact on terminal short-term U.S. interest rates and of course, how the debt ceiling plays out. In Europe, the ECB is on a similar but more difficult quest to tame inflation. They have had some help from lower than expected energy prices, and the outlook continues to be a bit brighter. The war in Ukraine sadly shows no sign of ending, and Europe faces more structural challenges, such as the need for increased defense spending, higher energy costs and fiscal burdens that will make efforts to dampen inflation and stimulate growth more difficult.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

In Asia, the reopening of China is adding to the momentum in the region. Although the Chinese consumer has been slower to rebound than expected. I saw many green shoots firsthand talking to our clients and our bankers in my various trips to India, Japan and Hong Kong this year. We have to keep a close eye on geopolitics as the U.S.-China relationship becomes increasingly strained and is fragmenting economic blocks. We see this translate into shifts in flows and heightened cross-border volume across TTS and our global network. Turning to how we performed this quarter. We reported net income of $4.6 billion and an EPS of $2.19. We had good revenue growth of 6% ex divestitures, and both revenue and expenses were in line with our guidance.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

Our ROTCE of nearly 11% benefited from the closing of the Sales of our consumer businesses in India and Vietnam, and would have been over 9% without those gains. Let me highlight our operating performance in each of our five core businesses. In Services, TTS just continued to go from strength to strength, with revenues up 31%. Non-interest revenue is up 11% quarter-on-quarter on the back of increased cross-border activity and good performance in Commercial Cards due to the rebound of corporate travel. Securities Services wasn't too shabby either. Up 23% as we executed on new mandates, onboarded new AUC and benefited from higher rates. Within markets, our fixed income revenues were up 4% from a year ago. We benefited from excellent performance in rates and continued engagement from our corporate clients.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

The first quarter of 2022 was no slouch, as you may recall, but this quarter was our third best in a decade. Equities was much weaker, however, down markedly in both derivatives and cash, although still had revenues north of $1 billion. Banking was down again, but there were signs of the beginning of a pickup, including increased activity in the Investment Grade market. In U.S. Personal Banking, our Cards businesses gained momentum as all drivers continued to normalize the pre-COVID levels and beyond. Branded Cards and Retail Services saw revenues up 18% and 24%. Retail banking saw some growth as we continue to see good momentum in mortgages and installment lending, and also experienced a significant increase in digital deposits. We did see a notable softening in consumer spending growth over the course of the quarter.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

Travel and Entertainment continued to grow in March. Essentials were flat and almost all other spend categories were down. Savings rates are below historic averages, and while the upper quintiles of household income still have roughly $1 trillion in excess savings, the savings of the lower quintiles have been significantly drawn down. We're keeping a diligent eye on the lower FICO bands as economic growth and services spend slow. While Revenues were down again, we remain confident about the prospects of our Wealth business. Despite the challenging headwinds, growth in Citigold accounts, client acquisition and client advisors were all solid, and we expect these drivers to flow through to revenue later this year and beyond. We also saw the early signs of a long-awaited Asian recovery. We built credit reserves this quarter on the back of growth in revolving balances in cards and poorer macro outlook.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

NCLs continued to normalize in consumer, while the health of our corporate base was evident in another quarter of very low NCLs. Finally, we continue to generate capital through our earnings. With our CET1 ratio now at 13.4%, we have room to absorb the temporary upfront impact should we sign a deal for Mexico. As you know, we continue to pursue a dual path here, we are committed to increasing the amount of capital we return to our shareholders over time. As you can see from slide three, in addition to good operating performance from our businesses and despite everything else going on in the industry, we got a lot done this quarter as we implement the strategy we shared with you at Investor Day.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

We closed the sales of our consumer businesses in India and Vietnam. Indonesia and Taiwan are next on the list to close later in the year. We are intensifying our efforts to eliminate stranded costs and simplify our organizational structure. We made some significant leadership announcements. I'm delighted that Andy Sieg will join Citi at my table as the new Head of Wealth Management. Andy is a widely respected leader in this space and comes to us after running an $18 billion business with $2.8 trillion in client balances. He is the latest and the most visible example of the excellent talent we have attracted over the last couple of years.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

With Karen Peetz retiring, we named Anand Selvakesari as our Chief Operating Officer and asked him to take on running our enterprise-wide transformation program in addition to his current responsibilities. Anand has been at Citi for over three decades and has a strong track record of delivering results. In terms of our transformation, we're completely focused on executing our plan to address the consent orders and improve our risk and control environment. Mark will walk you through specific examples of how we're modernizing our infrastructure, simplifying processes, and improving data quality. Importantly, these efforts are improving the client experience and helping us deliver Citi's full capabilities to them. To wrap up, it's one year after our Investor Day, and I'm proud of the progress we've made and our relentless focus on delivering. Our strategy is clear. Our business model is resilient and diversified. Our balance sheet is strong.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

We're making good progress on execution. Amidst considerable turmoil, we're delivering on our guidance and our commitments. Our team is determined to continue delivering with excellence. With that, I would like to turn it over to Mark, and then we will be delighted, as always, to take your questions.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Good morning, everyone. I'm gonna start with the firm-wide financial results, focusing on year-over-year comparisons for the first quarter, unless I indicate otherwise, spend a little more time on expenses, our balance sheet, and capital. I will turn to the results of each segment. On slide four, we show financial results for the full firm. In the first quarter, we reported net income of approximately $4.6 billion and an EPS of $2.19, and an ROTCE of nearly 11% on $21.4 billion of revenues. Embedded in these results are pre-tax divestiture-related impacts of approximately $950 million, largely driven by the gain on sale of the India consumer business. Excluding these items, EPS was $1.86, with an ROTCE of over 9%.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

In the quarter, total revenues increased by 12% on a reported basis and increased 6% excluding divestiture-related impacts as strength across services, fixed income, and US Personal Banking was partially offset by declines in Investment Banking, Equity markets, and Wealth, as well as the revenue reduction from the closed exits and wind downs. Our results include expenses of $13.3 billion, an increase of 1% versus the prior year. Excluding divestiture-related costs in the prior year, expenses increased 5%, largely driven by the transformation, other risk and control investments in inflation, partially offset by productivity savings and the expense reductions from the exits and wind downs.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Cost of Credit was approximately $2 billion, primarily driven by the continued normalization in Card net credit losses, and ACL, and other provision bills of approximately $700 million, largely related to a deterioration in macroeconomic assumptions and growth in card revolving balance. At the end of the quarter, we had nearly $20 billion in total reserves, with a reserve to funded loan ratio of approximately 2.7%. On slide five, we show an expense walk for the first quarter with the key underlying drivers. Transformation investments drove 1% of the growth, largely in the data, finance, and risk and control programs. 4% of the increase is driven by structural, largely in the form of compensation and benefits, including the full year impact of the people we hired last year, as well as those we hired in the first quarter.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Embedded in this structural bucket are a few key items. First, other risk and control investments that are enterprise-wide and in the businesses, which make up about 2% of the total expense increase. Second, the impact of additional front and back-office hires. Third, Inflation and Severance Costs. All of this was partially offset by productivity savings as well as the benefit from foreign exchange translation and the expense reduction from the exits. Across the firm, technology-related expenses grew 12%. We recognize these investments have driven a significant increase in expenses, but they are crucial to modernize the firm, address the consent orders, and position Citi for success in the years to come. Now turning to slide six. I'd like to spend a few minutes giving you some tangible examples of what we're investing in and the benefits we'll see over time.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

In many cases, these investments will simplify our processes and platforms. For example, we are retiring and consolidating 20 cash equities platforms to one single modern platform, eliminating cost over time. We have consolidated 11 platforms to one global sanction screening platform, reducing false alerts, improving the client experience, and eliminating cost. We're also modernizing our infrastructure and the security of our data and information by enhancing cybersecurity through the use of AI and improving the security of our infrastructure and devices, leading to fewer operating losses. We are leveraging industry-leading cloud-based solutions to modernize and streamline the connectivity between our front office systems and the general ledger, eliminating manual processes and operating costs over time. We're driving the strategy by investing in the client experience, both in terms of our technology interface and innovative new products. We launched our cloud-based instant payments platform for e-commerce clients in TTS.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

We're also deploying CitiDirect® Commercial Banking, our mobile and digital interface for commercial clients, so they too can open accounts and access all products and services across ICG in the same way our large corporate clients do. Finally, we're investing in data to create advanced decision-making, client targeting, and risk management capabilities, which has allowed us to enhance our returns through greater RWA efficiency. We expect many of these investments to generate efficiencies that will allow us to self-fund future investments over time. On slide seven, we show Net Interest Income, Deposits, and Loans, where I'll speak to sequential variances. In the first quarter, Net Interest Income increased by approximately $80 million, largely driven by interest earning balances in cards. Average Loans were up slightly as growth in PBWM was largely offset by a decline in ICG.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Average Deposits were also up slightly, driven by growth in both PBWM and ICG. Our Net Interest Margin increased 2 basis points. On slide eight, we show key consumer and corporate credit metrics. We're well reserved for the current environment with nearly $20 billion of reserves. Our reserves to funded loan ratio is approximately 2.7%, and within that, US Cards is 8.1%. In PBWM, 44% of our lending exposures are in US cards, and of that exposure, nearly 80% is to customers with FICO scores of 680 or higher. NCL rates, while reflecting some typical seasonality this quarter, are still below pre-COVID levels and are normalizing in line with our expectations. The remaining 56% of our PBWM lending exposure is largely in Wealth and predominantly Mortgages and Margin Lending.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

In our ICG portfolio, of our Total Exposure, approximately 85% is Investment Grade . Of the International Exposure, approximately 90% is Investment Grade or exposure to multinational clients or their subsidiary. Corporate Non-Accrual Loans remain low at about 40 basis points of Total Loans. As you can see on the page, we break out our Commercial Real Estate lending exposures across ICG and PBWM, which total $66 billion, of which 90% is Investment Grade. While the macro and geopolitical environment remains uncertain, we feel very good about our asset quality, exposures, and reserve levels, and we continuously review and stress the portfolio under a range of scenarios. On slide nine, we show our summary balance sheet and key capital and liquidity metrics. We've added a few additional metrics to the page to provide additional transparency into how we manage the balance sheet.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

We maintain a very strong $2.5 trillion balance sheet, which is funded in part by a well-diversified $1.3 trillion deposit base across regions, industries, customers, and account types, which is deployed into high-quality diversified assets. Our balance sheet is a reflection of our strategy and well-diversified business model. We leverage our unique assets and capabilities to serve corporates, financial institutions, investors, and individuals with global needs. First, the majority of our deposits, $819 billion, are institutional and span 90 countries. The majority of these institutional deposits tend to be interest rate sensitive. When rates go up, we reprice the deposits accordingly, but that reprice takes into account the overall client relationship as well as the level of rates.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Despite this interest rate sensitivity, these deposits tend to be stable as they are tied to the operational services that we provide. These institutional deposits are complemented by $437 billion of US Retail Consumer and Global Wealth Deposits, as you can see on the bottom right side of the page. These deposits are well diversified across the private bank, Citigold, Retail and Wealth at Work, as well as across regions and products, with 75% of US Citigold clients and approximately 50% of ultra-high net worth clients having been with Citi for more than 10 years. Our Wealth deposits tend to also be interest rate sensitive, but this usually results in our customers moving to higher-yielding deposits and investment products. Now turning to the asset side.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

At a high level, you can think of our deposits being largely deployed in three asset buckets: Loans, Investment Securities, and Cash, which complement the interest rate sensitivity and liquidity value of our liability. This deployment is also linked to our strategy. We use our resources to lend and transact with our clients in ways that deepen the relationship and drive returns for our shareholders while maintaining strong Liquidity and Capital. Our $652 billion loan portfolio is well diversified across Consumer and Corporate loans. The duration of the total portfolio is approximately 1.3 years as the majority of these loans are variable rate. About 35% of our balance sheet is in Cash and Investment Securities, which contribute to our $1 trillion of available liquidity resources.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

At the end of the quarter, we had an LCR of 120%, which means we have roughly $100 billion of HQLA in excess of the amount required by the rule to cover stressed outflows. You can see the details of this on page 27 in the appendix. Just as important as the quantum of liquidity is the composition and duration of that liquidity. Our $513 billion investment portfolio consists largely of highly liquid US Treasury, agency, and other sovereign bonds, and is split evenly between available for sale and held to maturity, where we've maintained a short duration of less than three years so we could benefit from higher interest rates.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

We actively and prudently manage our Assets and Liabilities by considering a range of possible stress scenarios and how they might impact interest rate risk, liquidity, and capital. In summary, our assets and liabilities are aligned across interest rate sensitivity, liquidity value and duration, and reflect the diversified business model and execution of our strategy. On slide 10, we show a sequential CET1 walk to provide more detail on the drivers this quarter. Walking from the end of the fourth quarter, first we generated $4.3 billion of net income to common, which added 38 basis points. Second, we returned $1 billion in the form of common dividend, which drove a reduction of about 9 basis points. Third, impact on AOCI through our AFS investment portfolio drove a 7 basis point increase.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Finally, the remaining 4 basis point increase was largely driven by the RWA benefit from closing our consumer exits. We ended the quarter with a 13.4% CET1 capital ratio, approximately 40 basis points higher than last quarter. This includes a 100 basis point internal management buffer. As it relates to buybacks, we did not buy back any stock this quarter. We will continue to make that decision on a quarter-by-quarter basis. On slide 11, we show the results for our Institutional Clients Group for the first quarter. Revenues were up 1% this quarter, largely driven by Services and Fixed Income, mostly offset by Investment Banking and Equities. Expenses increased 4% driven by transformation, other risk and control investments, and volume-related expenses, partially offset by FX translation and productivity savings.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Cost of credit was a $72 million benefit as an ACL release more than offset net credit losses. This resulted in net income of approximately $3.3 billion, up 23%, driven by the lower cost of credit and higher revenues, partially offset by higher expenses. ICG delivered a 13.8% ROTCE for the quarter. Average loans were down 2%, reflecting discipline around our strategy and returns. Average deposits were up 3% as we continue to acquire new clients and deepen relationships with existing ones. Sequentially, average deposits were up 1%. On an end of period basis, ICG deposits were down 3% sequentially, driven by seasonality as our clients tend to make tax payments in the first quarter. On slide 12, we show revenue performance by business and the key drivers we laid out at Investor Day.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

In Treasury and Trade Solutions, revenues were up 31%, driven by 41% growth in Net Interest Income and 13% in NIR with growth across all client segments. We continue to see healthy underlying drivers in TTS that indicate consistently strong client activity with US dollar clearing volumes up 6%, reflecting continued swift share gains, cross-border flows up 10%, outpacing global GDP growth, and commercial card volumes up roughly 40% led by spend in travel. While the rate environment drove about 60% of the growth this quarter, business actions drove the remaining 40% as we continued to deepen relationships with existing clients and win new clients. In fact, client wins are up approximately 50% across all segments. These include marquee transactions where we are serving as the client's primary operating bank.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

In security services, revenues grew 23% as Net Interest Income grew 94%, driven by higher interest rates across currency, partially offset by a 6% decrease in non-interest revenue due to the impact of market valuations. We are pleased with the execution in security services as we continue to onboard assets under custody and administration from significant client wins, and we feel very good about the pipeline of new deals. As a reminder, the services businesses are central to our strategy and are two of our higher returning businesses with strong linkages across the firm. Markets revenues were down 4% as growth in fixed income was more than offset by Equities. Fixed Income revenues were up 4% relative to a very strong quarter last year as strength in our rates franchise was partially offset by a decline in FX and Commodities.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Equities Revenues were down 25% also relative to a strong quarter last year, primarily reflecting reduced client activity in Cash and Equity Derivatives. Corporate client flows remain strong and stable. We continue to make solid progress on our revenue to RWA target. Finally, banking revenues, excluding gains and losses on loan hedges, were down 21%, driven by Investment Banking as heightened macro uncertainty and volatility continued to impact client activity. Having said that, we do see revenue growth sequentially, largely driven by the Investment Grade market opening up. Overall, while the market environment remains challenging, we feel good about the progress that we're making in ICG. Turning to Slide 13, we show the results for our Personal Banking and Wealth Management business.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Revenues were up 9%, driven by Net Interest Income growth of 10%, partially offset by a 1% decline in Non-Interest Revenue, driven by lower investment product revenues in Wealth. Expenses were also up 9%, predominantly driven by investments in transformation and other risk and control initiatives. Cost of credit was $1.6 billion, driven by higher net credit losses as we continue to see normalization in our card portfolios and a reserve build of approximately $500 million, largely driven by a deterioration in macroeconomic assumptions and growth in card revolving balance. Average Loans increased 7% driven by Cards, Mortgages, and Installment Lending. Average Deposits decreased 3%, largely reflecting our Wealth clients putting cash to work in fixed income investments on our platform. PBWM delivered an ROTCE of 5.5%, largely driven by higher credit costs.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

On Slide 14, we show PBWM revenues by product as well as key business drivers and metrics. Branded cards revenues were up 18%, driven by higher Net Interest Income. We continue to see strong underlying drivers with new account acquisitions up 17%, card spend volumes up 9%, and Average Loans up 15%. Retail Services Revenues were up 24%, also driven by higher Net Interest Income. For both Card portfolios, we continue to see payment rates decline, and that combined with the investments that we've been making contributed to growth in interest earning balances of 18% in branded cards and 11% in Retail Services. Retail Banking Revenues were up 3%, primarily driven by higher Mortgage Revenue and strong growth in Personal Installment lending, partially offset by the impact of the transfer of relationships and the associated deposits to our Wealth business.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

In fact, consistent with the strategy, we continue to leverage our retail network to drive over 13,000 Wealth referrals in the first quarter. Wealth Revenues were down 9%, driven by continued investment fee headwind and higher deposit costs, particularly in the private bank. We did see notable improvement in revenues in Asia, which were up approximately 20% on a sequential basis. Client advisors were up 3%. We are seeing net new investment inflows and strong new client acquisitions across our Wealth business, with new clients in the private bank and Wealth at Work up 62% and 81% respectively. The environment continues to remain challenging for Wealth, we're seeing strong underlying business drivers as we execute against our strategy. Slide 15, we show results for legacy franchise.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Revenues grew 48%, driven by a gain on sale of our Consumer business in India, partially offset by the wind downs and closed consumer exits. Expenses decreased 24%, largely driven by the absence of a goodwill impairment we had in the prior year, as well as the impact of the wind downs and closed consumer exits. On Slide 16, we show results for corporate other for the first quarter. Revenues increased, largely driven by higher net revenue from the investment portfolio. Expenses increased, driven by transformation and other risk and control investments, partially offset by a reduction in consulting fees. Before we move to Q&A, I'd like to end with a few key points. Despite recent events and the economic uncertainty that remains, our full year outlook for revenue and expenses remains unchanged.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

We have a very strong balance sheet with a diversified set of assets and funding sources and ample capital and liquidity. This positions us well to serve clients and navigate any number of scenarios. We're seeing solid momentum in the underlying drivers of the majority of our businesses and continue to execute on our strategy. The financial path will not be linear, but we are confident that we can achieve our medium-term targets. Finally, I'm incredibly proud of how our firm and our employees have continued to help our clients navigate the recent environment and support the health of the overall banking system. With that, Jane and I would be happy to take your questions.

[Operator]

At this time, we will open the floor for questions. To ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If at any time you find that your question has already been addressed, you may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star two. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question only. Once again, that is star one to ask a question. Our first question will come from Glenn Schorr with Evercore. Your line is open.

[Glenn Schorr, Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore]

Hi. Thank you. Simple one. I appreciate the many, many moving parts, but your first quarter NII and revenue production was great. If you just annualize it, you're handily ahead of your full year guide. I'm just curious on how you were thinking about, you know, maintaining the guide, but running ahead of schedule.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Thanks, Glenn, and good morning. Appreciate the question. Look, we did have a very solid first quarter, but as Jane mentioned in her prepared remarks, you know, there are a number of things that are still out there in the global macro environment that are uncertain and unclear, including, frankly, as we contemplate the direction of rates and what's required to tame inflation, let alone the uncertainty that we've seen in parts of the sector here through the quarter. When I think about that, and I think about frankly how, you know, betas have evolved and the likelihood of a recession in the back half of the year, which we have built into our outlook, I remain comfortable with the guidance that we've set here.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

As in when you think about where that comes from, the strength in TTS, the strength in security services, both benefiting from, you know, the rate hikes we saw last year, but also deepening relationships with new and existing clients. The card momentum, which is really about seeing more revolving activity as payment rates start to slow. The recovery in Investment Banking and Wealth is not as swift as we would like. We have to see how that plays out too. When I put those things together, there's certainly some puts and takes that speaks to the diversification of our business model. It leaves me in a place where I'm comfortable with the guidance that we've set. If that changes, we'll certainly update you, but that's where we are.

[Glenn Schorr, Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore]

Well, I appreciate that. Maybe if I could follow up on your comments and the previous ones on TTS and security services. I try to learn from all my mistakes. I make a lot of them. You know, in 2008, we thought housing prices couldn't go down much, and then they went down a lot, and we all adapt. Same thing in March. Thought deposits couldn't leave a bank so quickly, but they did. My Slide 25 and 26, people should look at because they're great, and they show the stability of your deposit franchise. I'm curious if history can change at all. Meaning, right now those are, you know, cash and operating deposits that clients keep with you, and they need you, and you're fully integrated. Do you have client concentrations we should know about?

[Glenn Schorr, Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore]

How are you thinking about any big changes that can happen in terms of client behavior relative to the past in terms of what they keep at any given bank? I know that's a tough one.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

Yeah. Glenn, I'll kick it off and pass it over to Mark. I feel very comfortable about how very well diversified our deposit base is across different countries, industries, clients, and currencies. It's extremely strong in that respect. As you say, the majority of the institutional deposits are integrated into the operating accounts all around the world to enable the clients to run their day-to-day operations, the payroll, the working capital, the supply financing, et cetera.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

I think what's changed in the more digital world is, frankly, these have become even stickier because the amount of data, the extent of integration into the technology platforms and systems of the clients, and the value that we extract and present back to the clients from the combination of our FX trade, cash, et cetera, flows, is incredibly important in driving their efficiency, their risk management, and their financial performance as well. Both the extent of that diversification and the increasing stickiness versus history is something that we're certainly not complacent about. I think is why you see some of the pages we've put into the deck as well, including in the back on just the consistency of this base. Mark, what would you add?

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

I think that's exactly right, Jane. Glenn, I'm glad you pointed out pages 25 and 26, which clearly lay out that diversification, but also the scale and stability, you know, of those deposits over an extended period of time. You know, the only thing I'd add additional to that would be, obviously we're in an environment where there's quantitative tightening that's occurring. You know, that's gonna have a broad, you know, industry impact as we've started to see already. We're also in an environment where rates are, you know, increasing. We'll see how that plays out through the balance of the year. That has an impact on betas. We shouldn't mistake price sensitivity or interest rate sensitivity with the stickiness of the deposits.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

We've obviously talked about betas increasing, particularly in our TTS portfolio, more so in the U.S. It obviously will continue to increase outside of the U.S. We'll work the relationship that we have with those clients and the breadth of services that we bring to influence and impact pricing. More importantly, because of the operating nature of them, we do see them as very stable.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from Mike Mayo with Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open.

[Mike Mayo, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities]

Hi. Jane, I challenged you a couple of earnings calls ago about the complexity created by being in so many countries, and you said TTS was your crown jewel. And here it's up almost one-third year-over-year. So far so good under since your Investor Day. Can you talk about some of the fee growth? I mean, we kind of understand the NII growth, but the fee growth is double digits also. I guess that's money in motion, and I think you've described this as the world's largest wholesale global payment system. What's happening to give you double-digit top-line growth there?

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

Thank you, Mike. A great question. I think one of the numbers I'm almost more happy about than the stellar revenue growth was the fee growth quarter-over-quarter here. Obviously we've been benefiting in TTS from the rates environment, but we've also been benefiting from the drivers behind the franchise. The fee revenues are coming from multiple different products and different offerings that we have here on that. We're typically looking and have consistently looked at growing our fee revenue as a percentage of the underlying growth in TTS. It got masked a bit when the rates environment was growing so much.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

The different areas there, around the world are making a big difference to, just our, the strength of our earnings and the quality of our earnings in these areas.

[Mike Mayo, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities]

Okay. As it relates to rates generally, like what is it like over 90% of your rate sensitivity is outside the U.S., and so shouldn't you be benefiting more than you originally thought given some of these rate hikes? I guess, Mark, are you just sandbagging a little bit? I get the uncertainties and IB backlog pushed out. No, I mean, we want you to have a reasonable bar to jump over, and I'm just wondering if you set the bar high enough for yourself this year.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

You know, again, I think that there is, there's certainly, you know, more opportunity in terms of how rates move and capturing NII, as you pointed out, outside of the US. We articulate our interest rate exposure for a parallel shift, and that mix at the end of last year was the 90:10 that you mentioned for non-US. As I sit here, you know, in March, it probably is gonna skew a little bit less non-US and a little bit more towards the US, and you'll see that in the queue. With that said, I mentioned earlier there's still a bit of uncertainty in terms of how rates continue to evolve here in the US. We'll see how betas evolve.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

We've reached terminal betas, in the US with our clients kind of at the end of last year. We'll see kind of what happens in terms of pricing, through the balance of 2023. Betas are not quite at terminal levels outside of the US, we'll see the pacing of that, again, in light of how the interest rate curve may be evolving, and frankly, in light of how, we've seen the broader sector turmoil play out. That could in fact, you know, play to our benefit. We are also, again, an environment where there's quantitative tightening that is still at play. The final point I'd make, Mike, that often people forget is that in that NII is legacy NII.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

As we continue with our wind downs, our divestitures, et cetera, that's going to be a headwind that we will have to deal with.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from Betsy Graseck with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

[Betsy Graseck, Managing Director and Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research at Morgan Stanley]

Hi. Good morning.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Morning.

[Betsy Graseck, Managing Director and Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research at Morgan Stanley]

I know during the prepared remarks, you talked a bit about Andy Sieg coming on board, and I just wanted to understand how to think about the outlook for what you're doing with Wealth, not only in the U.S., but the non-U.S. locations, and also try to understand how much capital you think you could apply to that business relative to what you have today. Thanks.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

Hey there, Betsy. We're obviously delighted that Andy's joining as our new Global Head of Wealth around my table. I know he's a, he's a tremendous leader with a great track record driving growth. He's got deep product and digital expertise, proven people leader, and we'll certainly be taking full advantage of his expertise and experience in the US. We're not shifting our strategy, and Wealth, his mandate is consistent with the strategy we laid out Investor Day. We see a lot of potential of growth in Asia as we fill in the coverage across the full Wealth spectrum there. We'll be scaling up in the US by building out the investment offering and cross-selling into our existing and new clients, across the country.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

We see tremendous potential of growth in our private bank and the family office franchise really around the world. There's a lot of synergies to be realized as we point out in the different KPIs and drivers between the other four core businesses in terms of referrals and other business that we're able to generate across the franchise. The core of the strategy will not be changing with him coming on board. Mark, what else would you add in?

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

The only thing I'd add is that, look, we are, I think, well-positioned for as the market recovers, and it plays towards Wealth. When you look at kind of the client advisors, as you know, we've been investing in bringing on new client advisors. We've been increasing the number of new clients that we've been onboarding as well. We've invested in some of the investment products that we have, and so I feel like we are positioning ourselves for when this turns. As it relates to your question regarding capital, you know, this in a normal cycle is a very healthy returning business. And as the market turns and as we recover, we would look to deploy capital appropriate with the growth and return prospects that we see in front of us.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

It's also not as much of a capital-intensive business as other businesses. I think you've got to keep both of those things in mind.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from Erika Najarian with UBS. Your line is open.

[Erika Najarian, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at UBS]

Hi, good morning. I think it's remarkable that your first 2 questions were essentially saying that your revenues are too conservative. That's very notable. My first question is a follow-up to Betsy. I think everybody was certainly impressed, Jane, at the Andy Sieg hire, and clearly, he was running a much larger business than what Citi has today. This is sort of a tricky question. Clearly, you're still working through some of the transformation. There's still a consent order. Given your strength as a global player, could Citi participate in perhaps, you know, inorganic opportunities that could be out there that have been a result perhaps of the liquidity crisis that we saw that could potentially enhance your Wealth management footprint more quickly?

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

We see plenty of potential for organic growth potential. I think that's really where we're going, we're going to be focusing, Erika, because I look at the private bank and the family office. There is so much Wealth creation supplemented by our commercial banking relationships with a lot of the enterprises and the owners of those enterprises who are really generating, you know, the new industry champions in country after country, and we're extremely well-positioned to capture that. I don't see an inorganic play that would actually help us on it. We also benefit because we don't have our own proprietary products and a sales force pushing those proprietary products.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

We're open architecture, therefore, we're a very desirable partner for many of our key partners on the institutional side of the business to be able to provide very interesting value propositions, investment opportunities, and the like to our clients around the world. Finally, on, you know, we can see certainly areas in interesting digital plays, different partnerships, areas like that are of interest. I'll never say never in the longer run. I'm sure if something very attractive comes up, we'll be very interested in looking at it. It's not something right now that I think makes sense, given where we're focused. You know, actually almost independent of the consent orders.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

I think where what we're looking at doing right now is getting this organic play right, then we'll see from there.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

I think it's pretty telling that, you know, we have 13,000 referrals.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

Yeah.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

retail bank to the Wealth space, right? Or to our Wealth business. There's a lot of embedded opportunity, and it really speaks to the integrated model that we've been talking about.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

I think the other bit I'd also just point to is, I, you know, I think one of the things we do benefit from is that we aren't constrained by being dominated by a brokerage model in a particular way of doing Wealth. Part of the mandate for Andy and the ones that we've been working on to date is really looking at what is modern Wealth management and making sure that we are really well-positioned that way because I do think that will be more of the way of the future.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from Jim Mitchell with Seaport Global. Your line is open.

[Jim Mitchell, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Seaport Global]

Hey, good morning. Maybe just a question on capital. Appreciate the fact that, you know, the potential sale of the Mexico franchise would be a negative impact, but you're sitting at a pretty comfortable cushion now above your target. Obviously, your expected future retained earnings growth should be more than an offset. How are you thinking about the timing of restarting buybacks with your stock as cheap as it is?

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Yeah. Thanks, Jim, good morning. Look, we, as you point out, we grew capital pretty sizably this quarter, up to 13.4 from a CET1 ratio point of view and up significantly from a year ago, some 200 basis points or so. A good portion of that, a significant portion of that was really net income earnings generation, which is important. Look, the way we think about it is at 13.4, we certainly have well above what's required from a reg point of view, and it includes our internal management buffer of about 100 basis points.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

As we've said in the past, there is certainly the Mexico transaction, and that would be a temporary drag, if you will, to CET1 at signing, the difference between signing and closing if it were a sale to take place. Then there's a couple of other factors that are out there as well. Think about the Basel III end game that's out there and the capital requirements that could come out of that. Think about the CCAR DFAST that has been submitted and currently under review and what that might mean for stress capital buffers. Also think about just where we are in the broader economy and broader global macro environment that we're playing in and needing to see how that kind of evolves.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

When I think about all those factors, we're in a place where we will continue to take it quarter by quarter. I'd end by saying, you know, our bias is kind of where yours is, which is given where we're trading. All things being equal, we'd like to be buying back shares. We have to be responsible about that and the timing of that.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

I think we'll have more clarity fairly soon, around the number of the factors, so we'll be able to give you better clarity on timing before too long.

[Jim Mitchell, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Seaport Global]

Yep. All fair. Maybe as a follow-up, just you mentioned increased macro assumptions embedded in reserves. Where are you now on the macro assumptions in the reserve book?

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

In terms of the reserve, again, remember, we have a couple of different scenarios that we run when we calculate the CECL reserves. Our current reserves are based on those three macroeconomic scenarios. It reflects a 5.1% or so unemployment rate on a weighted basis over eight quarters. That's relatively flat versus last quarter. The other point worth mentioning is that in this particular calculation for the quarter, we did skew a little bit more towards the downside in terms of the probability weighting than last quarter. Again, in light of the macro environment and the combination of that as well as some normalization in the portfolio, including an increase in revolver activity contributed to the increase in reserves we saw.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

To answer your question, unemployment at about 5.5% for the weighted, you know, Sorry, 5.1% for the weighted basis over the eight quarters.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from Steven Chubak with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

[Steven Chubak, Managing Director at Wolfe Research]

Hey, good morning.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Good morning.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

Morning.

[Steven Chubak, Managing Director at Wolfe Research]

Wanted to wanna start off with a question just on the IB and trading outlook. You know, on the trading side, just given some of the recent macro shocks, have you seen any evidence of bad volatility? Are you still confident that you can sustain that mid-single digit growth target? Just on the Investment Banking side, wanted to see if there's any evidence of green shoots. You know, it's been a challenging backdrop, as you noted, Mark, but was hoping you could offer some color just across some of the different product lines across M&A, ECM, DCM.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Why don't I start, and then Jane, feel free to jump in.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

Mm-hmm.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Look, we had a, you know, we saw better performance in the quarter in markets than when I talked at the conference earlier, you know, in the quarter. Really that played through in our fixed income business, which was up about 4% year-over-year, driven largely by strength in rates. We saw rate volatility in the back end of the quarter, and we were well positioned to take advantage of that and serve clients, and that aided getting us to the down 4 in aggregate across markets. What we talked about for the full year is kind of relatively flat performance, and I still think that, based on what we see today, and subject to how the macro continues to evolve, that we'll be able to deliver on that.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

As you know, volatility in many instances plays to the favor of markets businesses. So there's a bit of an unknown as to how that, you know, evolves, but I feel confident in the guidance that we've given thus far on that. Did you wanna.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

Yeah. I'd jump in before you turn to banking as well. I think one of the differences with our franchise compared to some others is that we are the go-to bank for corporate. That provides a highly attractive but pretty steady flow of activity. This is obviously in the volatile markets we've been seeing is from our perspective, very good volatility because we're able to support our clients in rates, FX, commodity hedging. It makes our risk flows much more diversified than our competitors, particularly in volatile markets like this. You know, we're not taking positions. This is really attractive client flow business right at the heart of the global network.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

The other piece that I think is important in the mix here too, is just the partnership with TTS, cross-border payments, these other elements that's a cornerstone of the FX franchise. There's some pieces here of the volatility that one doesn't usually think of this as being client, so client heavy. That's what's differentiating on the Citi franchise. Mark, back to you.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

You know, thank you. I think that's exactly right in terms of the corporate client base there. Look, in Investment Banking, obviously, the wallets down, were down meaningfully last year. We saw some performance, good performance in debt capital markets this quarter, up 66% versus the prior quarter, particularly as we saw activity in Investment Grade names, which is an area of strength for us for sure. I think there was a bit of momentum behind a bit more clarity on the direction of rates, so we'll see how that continues to evolve and play out. The other thing I'd add is that we continue to have, you know, very good dialogue with clients as they manage through the environment and try to anticipate what the balance of the year looks like.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

At some point, it's clear that clients are going to need to get back into the markets, but that trajectory is gonna largely depend on the geopolitical and macro environment and how we all manage and navigate that uncertainty. Very engaged, healthy pipeline, but subject to how the environment continues to evolve.

[Steven Chubak, Managing Director at Wolfe Research]

That's great. For my follow-up, just on PWM fee income trends, I'm not gonna ask you about the broader Wealth strategy, but we're big fans of Andy here, so congrats on the hire. The one thing I did want to get a better sense of is how much of the sequential improvement that we saw in fees is a function of just partner payments being higher as credit continues to normalize, and how we should be thinking about the trajectory in fees within PBWM over the remainder of this year.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

I think there are a couple of things to kind of keep in mind in terms of PBWM fees. I think part of it is that PBWM is a combination of both the cards business as well as the Wealth business. A good amount of the pressure that we've seen in fees, and that is, you know, still subject to how the environment evolves is in the Wealth space because we continue to see fee pressure on investment activity and revenues there. We'll have to see how the market valuations move on some of the assets that we manage on behalf of clients and what momentum it drives in terms of more investment activity. I think that's a big part of the drag in fees.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

The upside that we've seen in fees in Banking and Cards, again, I think will be subject to how activity and volume evolves across our Cards business. We do expect revolving levels to continue, but purchase sales, while they're up year-over-year, when we look at kind of the latter months of the quarter, you know, the growth has been slowing and has been quite concentrated in travel and entertainment. We'll have to see how some of that volume activity evolves. And that'll be a factor to keep in mind.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from Ebrahim Poonawala from Bank of America. Your line is open.

[Ebrahim Poonawala, Managing Director at Bank of America]

Hey, good afternoon. Just a couple of quick questions. One, in terms of the Banamex sale, I think Jane, you mentioned that maybe we might hear something relatively soon, and you still are pursuing the dual track process. One, if you do decide to go the IPO route, does that change the accounting dynamics, Mark, with regards to taking the hit early on, if given just the time it might take to go through an IPO? The outlook for the Mexican economy, the banks continues to be robust. Is that impacting or influencing how you're thinking about the value that you should get from this transaction?

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

We're in a very active dialogue right now in Mexico, neither Mark or I are gonna comment in a lot of detail there. As you say, we're continuing to pursue a dual path, both a sale and an IPO. We'll have an exit strategy either way. We'll take the path that is in the best interest of our shareholders. We've got an enormous body of work going on in Mexico to separate out the institutional business. I'm pleased with the progress they're making. I think we're seeing, when we look at the performance of our Mexican franchise, a lot of the really strong performance is happening in our ICG business, where Mexico is such a beneficiary of the supply chain dynamics that are happening around the world.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

Its location is obviously very beneficial given the proximity to the US as well. We're seeing a lot of the dynamic and the big benefits here coming in the institutional franchise that we are keeping within Citi as a core part of our business. You know, the current Mexican economy doesn't really have so much of an impact on our current decision making. The principle is we will take the path that is in the best interest of our shareholders.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Yeah. Just to put some numbers to that, for the quarter, Mexico was up 16% revenue year-over-year. Quarter-over-quarter up 5%. Cards growth, Deposit growth. Performing well, I would say. In terms of the latter part of your question, Jane's exactly right. Everything we're doing is positioning us for both a private sale and or an IPO, and we'll choose the path that's best for shareholders. An IPO would take longer. It would likely take longer as we would want a set of full audited financials, et cetera. I would say that in terms of what the implications would be from an accounting point of view, CTA accounting is different for an IPO, so we would not recognize that CTA through the P&L in an IPO.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

We wouldn't have at signing that impact that is different from at closing. That would not be an issue. The impact would be a matter of how much we IPO'd at that time. A lot of moving pieces there we would need to figure out if we ended up down that path. Hopefully that gives you some sense of the scenarios there. I'd end with just one final point that Jane has made already, which is that the outcome that we choose will be the best outcome for our shareholders, our clients, and employees.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

That will be an exit.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from Matt O'Connor with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

[Matt O'Connor, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Hello. You guys have talked about bending the curve on costs, I think, in the latter part of 2024. I wanted to see if that's still the case. I guess maybe just some clarification on what bending the curve means. Is that slowing expense growth? Apps growth drops? Any kind of clarity on that and costs in general kind of medium-term would be helpful. Thank you.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Thanks, Matt. To answer your question very directly, yes, it is still the case. We are going to bend the curve, as I mentioned, you know, in go towards the end of 2024. It does mean an absolute dollar reduction, you know, in expenses.

[Matt O'Connor, Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Okay. That's helpful. I mean, I think in the past, you've kind of insinuated that that's like the start of hopefully a more material drop in cost beyond. Obviously, this is far away, but just any additional color there too. Thank you.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Yeah. Look, again, the expense base is a key area of focus for us, right? We recognize that expenses have been growing. They've been growing because we've been investing in the franchise, both transformation-wise as well as business-led growth to support the competitive advantages that we have in many of our franchises. We're managing that very actively and very deliberately. That means that we're looking to ensure that we're spending the money in the right way, in the right places, and that we're going to yield the benefits that we expect from that over time. That was all factored into the targets that we set at our Investor Day for the medium term.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

What that requires is that we start bending the curve in 2024, as I stated, and that we end in that medium term at a place where we have an operating efficiency of about 60%, and we're positioned to have returns that are in that 11%-12% ROTCE point of view. There are a couple of factors that are gonna contribute to lowering that expense base. One, the divestitures that we've been talking about, right? The second is the benefits from the transformation and other investments that I've just referenced. The third is further organizational and management simplification, efforts that we have underway that are enabled by the idea that we're exiting 14 consumer countries.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Those three factors, if you will, become very important, and to ensure that we get to that lower cost structure, and that we're able to deliver on the broader commitments that we're making with regards to returns.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from Gerard Cassidy with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

[Gerard Cassidy, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

Thank you. Hi, Jane. Hey, Mark.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Good morning.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

Hey there.

[Gerard Cassidy, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

Couple questions. Jane, maybe starting with you first, or Mark, you know, both of you can answer it. In view of what the disruptions we've seen in the banking system in the month of March with what went on with the regional banks here in the U.S. and obviously the larger investment bank over in Switzerland, do you guys see changes coming, or what changes do you see coming in terms of regulatory, whether it's more capital, more liquidity? It may not be directed at a company like yours because you're a Global SIFI already, and it might be more regional-orientated in the U.S. Then as part of this question, Jane, can you guys give us some color on the deposit you and your peers made into First Republic? What was the thinking behind that as well?

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

Yeah, sure. Thank you for the question, Gerard. Well, I'd say that we hope that there will be a thoughtful and a targeted approach to any changes in the regulatory and capital framework, and that they address the root causes of what actually happened here. What happened is a combination of macro impacts from the sharp rapid rate increases and some idiosyncratic situations, namely a lack of proper Asset and Liability Management at a small handful of banks. We don't see these issues as pervasive throughout the broader banking industry. The events certainly highlight the importance of prudent Asset and Liability Management. We still believe that there is plenty of capital amongst the large banks.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

If capital requirements were to increase for the large banks, by the regulators, it would exacerbate any credit tightening that might go on. Related to that, what continues to keep me most awake at night is the quantity and quality of activity in the shadow banking industry. It does not benefit from the same regulatory frameworks and protections for participants. I, amongst others, fear that more activity getting driven into it if the banking capital requirements increase will be to the detriment of system strength and stability. We hope that this approach will be thoughtful and targeted to where the issues actually were.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

As I said in my opening comments, we thought that the regulators, both at the local and the national and the international level, were very swift and effective in making sure that they tackled the issues that were in front. We were absolutely delighted that the large banks acted as a source of strength. Let's just step back for a minute. In the face of tremendous market uncertainty, 11 of the largest U.S. banks were able to come together to inject $30 billion of deposits into First Republic in little over one day. That speaks volumes for our capital and balance sheet positions. I think the responsibility of, you know, large institutions in recognizing that we also play an important role here in helping stabilize situations like this.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

We thought it was very important to help buy some time, and also demonstrate our confidence in the overall U.S. banking system. I hope that gives you a bit of a flavor.

[Gerard Cassidy, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

No, very, very insightful. Very, very good. Thank you. Then as a follow-up question, Yeah, I noticed that in your Card, I think it was slide eight, you give us the prime 80% of the portfolio's prime, which is, FICO score is greater than 680. I don't know if you would agree with this statement, but we're hearing that there was some FICO score inflation as a result of the pandemic. A lot of consumers saw their FICO scores go up. I've seen numbers as high as 70 points, that may be on the high side. Can you guys, do you agree with that? If you do, would you then expect the 700 FICO score customer at some point to behave like a 650 score customer?

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

I think the short answer is no, but let me let Mark answer that one.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Yeah. No, I think that's right. I think, what's really important here, Gerard, is kind of what we're seeing in the way of the performance of the portfolio. Again, I've heard that sentiment regarding FICO score inflation. We feel very confident in how we've assessed our customers and what it means to have 80% of our customers prime and greater than 680. I think importantly, what we're seeing is we're seeing payment rates start to slow. We're seeing average interest earning balances start to increase. We're seeing NCL rates increase, but particularly driven by the lower FICO score customers across the portfolio, which is where you would expect to start to see that drag occur.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

The NCL rates that we're seeing are still well below what we would see in a normal cycle, right? They're in line with what we've been forecasting for performance. There are no surprises that we're seeing in terms of how that curve is evolving. We'd expect that it will get back to those normal levels towards the beginning of next year. It will likely play through those normal levels a bit before tapering. My point here is that we understand our customers, the portfolio, and how it reacts to the environment enough to forecast that out. So far, that's been performing in line with that forecast and those estimates. Importantly, we continue to stress it to make sure we're not missing anything. Importantly, we carry a sizable reserve, as you know, as part of that $20 billion.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

I'd also add that we don't just rely on FICO scores for assessing the credit of our customers and our portfolio. There's a tremendous amount of data that we draw upon that goes well, well beyond that. That's also, as you can imagine, something that gives a lot more confidence is it's not just prior history, and it's a wealth of data that is used.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from Vivek Juneja with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

[Vivek Juneja, Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

Thank you. Thanks for taking my questions, Mark and Jane.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Morning.

[Vivek Juneja, Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

Mark, I'm going to go to your revenue. I hear you're keeping the revenue guidance unchanged. What is in your revenue assumption? Just want to unpeel that onion a little bit. What's in your revenue assumption for rates, U.S. and internationally? What is going on with deposit betas, particularly following the inflows you've seen recently in the U.S. with the crisis?

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

I guess a couple of things. One, in terms of the rates that we've assumed, in the balance of the year, we've kind of assumed that rates would flatten out after this quarter, after this second quarter, and then trend down a bit towards the end of the year. Down a bit to something like 4%-4.50% or so. 4%-4.50% or so. We may have one rate increase and then flatten and down to about 4.50%. That could change. Candidly, if it changes a little bit here or there, it's unlikely to have a meaningful impact in 2023. That's likely to have more of an impact in 2024. We can debate that curve.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

That's kind of what we have thus far in our, in our outlook. The second point I'd make is around U.S. rates. We're assuming I don't have specifics in front of me in terms of the rate curves around the globe, but we are assuming kind of continued rate increases there, not of significant magnitude, but some assumptions there, depending on, you know, where we're talking about. The beta assumptions that we have built in are for, you know, betas to continue to increase outside of the U.S. Again, they run lower than the U.S., you know, in general for our multinational clients.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

We expect that we will see in the PBWM, retail banking or PBWM client segment space that clients are likely to move towards either higher yielding deposit products or investment products. We factored those things into how we think about the outlook. Could that change or evolve? Absolutely. That's kind of what's behind, you know, what we've assumed here.

[Vivek Juneja, Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan]

Just as a clarification, with the inflows you've seen recently in deposits with the crisis, this is in the U.S.?

[Analyst]

Obviously. Any, are the betas tempering a little bit how much those are going up? Is that slowing down or not any change so far?

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

A couple of things I mentioned. One, we did see inflows in the quarter associated with some of the sector turmoil. If we've looked at kind of deposit levels from call it March 7th, March 8th through close to the end of March, we certainly did see an uptick, call it, probably a little bit under $30 billion or so of inflows, you know, in that period of time, with a good portion of that, a good portion of that in our CCB, our commercial middle market client base. You know, it's too soon to tell kind of how betas evolve, we do think that a good portion of those deposits will likely be sticky.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

I think what's important here is that, part of our strategy here is in fact growing operating deposits with our large multinational client and our middle market clients. We're going to continue to be focused on that. What's a little bit unclear is how the rate environment continues to evolve and what that means for how betas actually evolve, right? We'll have to kind of wait and see. It's too soon to tell as it relates to that.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from Ken Usdin with Jefferies. Your line is open.

[Ken Usdin, Managing Director of Equity Research at Jefferies]

Thanks. Hey, Mark. Just a follow-up on the credit. You mentioned obviously that you moved your part of your CECL adjustment a little bit towards the in your weightings. You had previously talked about getting towards quote-unquote normalized card losses, I think you had said by around the end of the year. Can you just, given the changes that we're seeing ahead of us and definitely saw some normalization happen this quarter, can you just, are you still online for that getting to that 3.5 and 5.5 in the respective card businesses by around year-end this year?

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Yep. Yeah. Year-end, early next year. Yes, we're still kind of on track on trend for that. Again, I'd expect that they, you know, pick up a little bit after that before they start tapering down. The answer to your question, Ken, is yes, that's still the timeline. Fourth quarter, early 2024, reaching those normalized levels.

[Ken Usdin, Managing Director of Equity Research at Jefferies]

Okay, cool. One more just follow-up. End of period deposits down 3. You mentioned the taxes. Do the tax end up across the business? When I look at the deposits page, there are a lot of ins and there are a lot of outs on an end of period basis. Just trying to get a sense of like, you know, what areas might have been impacted by that tax seasonality and where there was just, you know, some of the other pieces that you've already talked through in terms of, you know, inflows, outflows and everything else in between.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Yeah. It's a, it's a good question. Again, you know, in the, when you look at our deposits on an average basis, you see on page 26 that they tick up a little bit. If you look at it on an end of period basis, they're down about 3%. Essentially intra-quarter, particularly in March, as I mentioned earlier, we did see a sizable increase in flows. With that said, if you remember in the fourth quarter, we saw a nice run-up in deposits. We have the seasonality point that I referenced in my prepared remarks, excuse me.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Where we have both operational payments from our large TTS clients as well as tax payments, with our TTS clients, also with Wealth clients to some extent kind of playing through, the end of period deposits. Again, that for the most part is normal operating payments, that we'd expect to see at this time of year.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

No surprises.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Yeah.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

in what happened.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Yeah.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our last question will come from Mike Mayo with Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open.

[Mike Mayo, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities]

Hi. Just one clarification on that last answer. You said you had inter-quarter flows. Did you gain more deposits in the month of March? Was that in the U.S.?

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Yes, we did. Yes, that's what I was talking about, Mike, in terms of those flows. They did come, largely in the U.S. in the month of March—call it March eighth through kind of the end of March. They were overshadowed by these normal payments that I referenced. We still see good activity kind of even as we came through March and in the early parts of April.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

That was both in the, in the institutional business that we saw the inflows as well as in the, in the PBWM.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Yeah. Well, yeah.

[Mike Mayo, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities]

If you define deposits this way, I mean, if I'm oversimplifying, correct me, but look, you have, you know, 5,000 multinationals you really target for payments, capital markets and banking. Those companies have a lot of deposits, a lot of services. That's the stickiness. That's where you said 80% of your clients in TTS have been with you for over 15 years. What have the deposits for those 5,000 multinationals done? I know I'm asking to slice and dice in a little bit different way, but even just a general sense. Because the reason I'm asking this is because I think there's a disconnect between showing percent of uninsured deposits as a measure of stickiness, and I don't think that's valid. You showed higher deposits even though you have a big percentage of uninsured deposits.

[Mike Mayo, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities]

Maybe that doesn't matter as much as, you know, some front pages of newspapers are suggesting. If you could address that.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Yeah. Thanks, Mike. Look, I'd tell you to turn to page 26 in the earnings presentation, right? We've broken down the deposits for each of the businesses that we have. At the bottom you see the TTS deposits. This is where the 5,000 or so large multinational client deposits reside. You can see the stability as well as the steady growth in those deposits over time. To your point, you know, these are largely operational deposits that these clients have with us, and we shouldn't mistake rate sensitivity or betas with stickiness, right? Because these deposits tend to be, you know, quite sticky, you know, with us as you can see here. Now they're price sensitive in the sense that as rates go up, we often have to reprice those.

[Mark Mason, CFO at Citi]

Remember, the relationships we have with these clients are broader than just deposit relationships. That's what gives us the opportunity to adjust pricing accordingly, you know, with our deposits both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S. The other page in your own time you can look at is the page prior to that, which again speaks to the diversification of the portfolio, but it also speaks to the length of time that many of these clients have been with us and have grown with us. Nearly 80% of our deposits are from clients that have greater than 15-year relationship with us. That says a lot. Anyway, those are the two points I'd make. Hopefully, that addresses your question around the stickiness.

[Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi]

Yeah. I often say it takes a root canal to extract us from the operations of our clients, just because of exactly what we're talking about here. That also we see it even with the mid-market clients, that are a growing portion here as well because we're helping them expand internationally. That stickiness comes through. The LCR of 120% is a very high quality LCR ratio.

[Operator]

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to Jenn Landis for closing remarks.

[Jenn Landis, Head of Investor Relations at Citi]

Thank you everyone for joining us today. If you have any follow-up questions, please reach out to IR. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes the Citi first quarter 2023 earnings review call. You may disconnect at any time.

Participants

Executives

• Mark Mason, CFO

Analysts

• Betsy Graseck, Managing Director and Global Head of Banks and Diversified Finance Research at Morgan Stanley
• Ebrahim Poonawala, Managing Director at Bank of America
• Erika Najarian, Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst at UBS
• Gerard Cassidy, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets
• Glenn Schorr, Senior Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Evercore
• Jane Fraser, CEO at Citi
• Jenn Landis, Head of Investor Relations at Citi
• Jim Mitchell, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Seaport Global
• Ken Usdin, Managing Director of Equity Research at Jefferies
• Matt O'Connor, Analyst at Deutsche Bank
• Mike Mayo, Managing Director and Head of U.S. Large-Cap Bank Research at Wells Fargo Securities
• Steven Chubak, Managing Director at Wolfe Research
• Vivek Juneja, Equity Research Analyst at JPMorgan
• Analyst