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Citi® Platinum Select® MasterCard
about Citibank:
Citibank is a major international bank, founded in 1812 as the
City Bank of New York. Citibank is now the consumer and corporate
banking arm of financial services giant Citigroup, the second
largest company of its kind in the world (after Industrial and
Commercial Bank of China). As of March 2007, it is the largest bank
in the United States by holdings.
Founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York by a group of New
York merchants, the bank's first head was Samuel Osgood, who had
been the U.S.'s first Postmaster General. Subsequently, ownership
and management of the bank was taken over by Moses Taylor, a protégé
of John Jacob Astor and one of the giants of the business world in
the 19th century. During Taylor's ascendancy, the bank functioned
largely as a treasury and finance center for Taylor's own extensive
business empire.
In 1865 the bank joined the U.S.'s new national banking system and
became The National City Bank of New York. By 1894, it was
considered one of the largest banks in the United States, and in
1897, it became the first major U.S. bank to establish a foreign
department. In 1913 it was the first contributor to the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York.
National City became the first U.S. national bank to open an
overseas banking office when its branch in Buenos Aires, Argentina
was opened in 1914. Many of Citi's present international offices are
older; offices in London, Shanghai, Calcutta and elsewhere were
opened in 1901 and 1902 by the International Banking Corporation
(IBC), a company chartered to conduct banking business outside the
U.S., at that time an activity time forbidden to U.S. national
banks. In 1918, IBC became a wholly owned subsidiary and was
subsequently merged into the bank. By 1919 the bank had become the
first U.S. bank to have $ 1 billion in assets.
Charles E. Mitchell was elected president in 1921 and in 1929 was
made chairman, a position he held until 1933. Under Mitchell the
bank expanded rapidly and by 1930 had 100 branches in 23 countries
outside the United States.
In 1952, James Stillman Rockefeller was elected president and then
chairman in 1959, serving until 1967. Stillman was a direct
descendant of the Rockefeller family through the William Rockefeller
(the brother of John D.) branch; in 1960 his second cousin, David
Rockefeller, became president of Chase Manhattan Bank, National
City's longtime New York rival for dominance in the banking industry
in America.
Following its merger with the First National Bank, the bank changed
its name to The First National City Bank of New York in 1955, then
shortened it to First National City Bank in 1962, and ultimately
changed it to Citibank in 1976. By that time, the bank had created
its own "one-bank holding company" and had become a wholly owned
subsidiary of that company, Citicorp (all shareholders of the bank
had become shareholders of the new corporation, which became the
bank's sole owner).
In the 1960s the bank entered into the credit card business. In
1965, First National City Bank bought Carte Blanche from Hilton
Hotels. However after three years, the bank (under pressure from the
U.S. government) was forced to sell this division. By 1968, the
company created its own credit card. The card, known as "The
Everything Card," was promoted as a kind of East Coast version of
the BankAmericard. By 1969, First National City Bank decided that
the Everything Card was too costly to promote as an independent
brand and joined Master Charge (now MasterCard). Citibank
unsuccessfully tried again in 1977-1987 to create a separate credit
card brand, the Choice Card.
In 1981, Citibank chartered a South Dakota subsidiary to take
advantage of new laws that raised the state's maximum permissible
interest rate on loans to 25 percent (then the highest in the
nation). In many other states, usury laws prevented banks from
charging interest that aligned with the extremely high costs of
lending money in the late 1970s and early 1980s, making consumer
lending unprofitable.
1998 Citibank logoCitibank was one of the first U.S. banks to
introduce automatic teller machines in the 1970s, in order to give
24-hour access to accounts.
Citibank's major presence in California is fairly recent. The bank
had only a handful of branches in that state before acquiring the
assets of California Federal Bank in 2002 with Citicorp's purchase
of Golden State Bancorp.
In August of 2004, Citibank entered the Texas market with the
purchase of First American Bank of Bryan, Texas. The deal
established Citigroup's retail banking presence in Texas, giving
Citibank over 100 branches, $3.5 billion in assets and approximately
120,000 new customers in the state. First American Bank was renamed
Citibank Texas after the take-over was completed on March 31, 2005.
It is hoped that with both California and Texas markets, Citibank
can appeal to both states' Latino population, and offer products on
both sides of the border through Citibank in the U.S., and Banamex
(Citigroup's Mexican division) in Mexico.
Citibank has operations in more than 100 countries and territories
around the world. More than half of its 1,400 offices are in the
United States, mostly in the New York City, Chicago, Miami, and
Washington DC metropolitan areas, as well as in California.
In addition to the standard banking transactions, Citibank offers
insurance, credit card and investment products. Their online
services division is among the most successful in the field,
claiming about 15 million users.
In April of 2006, Citibank struck a deal with 7-Eleven to put its
ATMs in over 5,500 convenience stores in the U.S. In the same month,
it also announced it would sell all of its Buffalo and Rochester New
York branches and accounts to M&T Bank.
It was announced on November 13th, 2006 that Citibank would be the
corporate sponsor of the new stadium for the New York Mets. The
stadium will open in 2009 and be called Citi Field.