Why Citibank Integrated Retail Banking and Wealth Management to Build Primacy
By Steve Cocheo, Senior Executive Editor at The Financial Brand
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For Citibank’s Kate Luft, the battle for consumer primacy revolves around two things.
One is the concept of “value prop.” When Luft, head of retail bank and Citigold since late 2025, speaks about strategy, it’s often with reference to boosting the value proposition the bank offers to current customers, as well as prospects.
Over the last few years, her part of the megabank has been revamping to convince people — especially the mass affluent and above — to consolidate their banking and investment relationships at Citi. She says another raft of new additions to the bank’s value prop are coming in the fourth quarter, intended to amp up Citi’s consumer appeal.
The second thing is a very specific number: $3 trillion.
That’s the estimated total of consumer financial business that existing Citi retail customers have with competitors. The bank wants that.
Chipping away at that challenging number drives everything that Luft does, whether it’s frequently getting out to branches to see how to reduce friction, finding ways to smooth digital channels or introducing AI tools to help bankers spot opportunities to persuade customers to bring additional relationships to the bank.
Key strategic insight: Where other major U.S. banks like Chase have been stressing ambitious branch expansion, Citi is for the most part standing pat on its 650-branch U.S. network in six affluent urban markets, albeit with renovations underway and increased community outreach.
Instead of putting more pins in new places, the bank says it is already where it wants to be and that it can improve results dramatically by deepening and building on the relationships it already has.
Need to Know:
- As part of a major realignment of the bank’s structure, in late 2025 Citi’s U.S. retail banking operation became part of the bank’s wealth segment.
- Citi’s population of affluent customers is 1.6 times the level in the U.S. overall. And the bank claims that its average deposits per branch is #1 for the country, at $255 million (excluding commercial deposits).
- Citi is making major investments in branch staff, notably in relationship manager and advisory roles, and recently replaced a 30-year-old teller system with state-of-the-art technology that Luft says has eliminated two million pieces of paper and saves frontline staff 480 hours daily.
- Digitally, this summer the bank began rolling out Citi Sky, an AI-based digital advisor designed to augment human investment advisors. Citi Sky was built with Google DeepMind and Google Cloud.
According to Luft, the key is acknowledging that many consumers handle their money differently than people used to.
Case in point: direct deposit. In the second quarter, Citi introduced a completely digital implementation of direct deposit.
At Citi direct deposit covers the usual payments, such as payroll, pensions, Social Security and such. But the bank also counts incoming payments via Zelle, Venmo, PayPal and other person-to-person payments via the automated clearinghouse. Monthly transfers of $250 or more earn fee waivers.
“We show up where and how our clients want to bank,” Luft says.
Read more: To Compete for Today’s Deposits, Banks Need to Redesign Their Account Offerings
Building Out from Existing Relationships with Tiered Accounts
Luft is a Citi veteran, serving over 18 years in varied roles from sales and trading to mortgages to Latin American banking, and for the last eight years in successively higher positions in retail banking.
Key strategic shift: An essential part of the effort to deepen relationships and build primacy is the bank’s “Simplified Banking.” The bank blew up a complicated set of package accounts and introduced a structure akin to airline rewards programs. Introduced in the summer of 2023, the bank began converting accounts over to the system in 2024. Luft says that 2025 was the first year of full implementation.
Consumers qualify for tiers based on their combined average monthly balance, including both deposits and investments. A balance of up to $29,000 puts the customer in the Everyday Benefits tier. Advantages improve as customer balances rise, taking customers from Citi Priority ($30,000 to $199,999), Citigold ($200,000 to $999,999 ), on up to Citi Private Client ($1 million and up). The higher up the ladder the customer goes, the better the deal, in terms of waived fees, services, resources and more.
Results for retail banking and Citigold were up 17% in the second quarter, year over year. During the company’s May investor day, Andy Sieg, head of wealth, indicated that client investment assets as a percentage of total client balances has grown from 42% in 2022, when the tiers were first announced, to 52% in 2025. He said the bank expects to hit the high 50s soon as more investment assets are brought to Citi.
Since the program’s introduction, hundreds of thousands of customers have upgraded from retail banking status to Citigold status by bringing more to the bank.
“There’s a ton of opportunities still,” says Luft. Citi’s system is designed to analyze customer involvement with the bank to upgrade their status within three months, but customers themselves often seek out upgrades to preferred tiers.
“Over 50% of the clients who are upgraded into Wealth actually raised their hands. We call it ‘tier acceleration’,” says Luft. “If you have the money and you’re going to bring it to the bank, you don’t have to wait three months to be upgraded. You can say, ‘Hi Kate, I’m going to bring the Citigold balances tomorrow. I’d like to be upgraded as soon as possible.’ We’ll upgrade you the next month.”
Read more: How Chase Is Evolving Its Consumer Products from ‘What Can I Do Now?’ to ‘What Should I Do Next?’
Making Connections within Family Units
Encouraging today’s customers to consolidate more at Citi is a central focus, but so is an effort to build future relationships. One key element is “Family Linking.”
Luft says this feature came from past experience and customer research. She explains that the bank would get angry calls like this: “Hey, I have $1 million dollars with the bank. My partner has $5, and you gave them a terrible experience. Why don’t you know that we’re a family unit? You send a statement to both of us at the same address. So, we’re both leaving.”
Under this part of the tier structure, family members whose balances are linked all receive the benefit of the tier that the aggregate combined balance earns. So, children, for example, could enjoy the Citigold status that their parents’ volume of business has.
What’s different about Family Linking: Linked family members don’t have to reside at the same address.
“This allows people who are starting off to have access to financial advisors, relationship managers and higher-tier benefits,” says Luft. The hope is that in time the linked family members’ assets will grow and come to Citi, turning Simplified Banking into a self-replicating engine.
Read more: How TD Bank is Using AI to Train Branch Bankers to be Better Humans
Drilling into the Student Market for Long-Term Relationship Building
In a related vein, Luft felt for some time that there was a gap at the front end, finding ways to bring in more new customers for the everyday banking tier. In July, the bank introduced Access Checking, available to new customers up to the age of 23. The checkless account includes the waiver of overdraft charges and monthly fees. Coupled with the bank’s broad definition of direct deposits, Luft believes the new accounts will have appeal to students.
Luft says staff will be going to 80 college campuses in coming months to spread the word and to offer financial education, and that she’ll be taking part in some events to see what’s on people’s minds.
Delivering the essentials. She says the bank has found that many young people crave an understanding of “the 101 of finance.” Luft is a strong believer in financial education for multiple segments, but especially for customers just starting out financially.
What about the continuing encroachment of fintech accounts? Luft argues the threat is overstated. While companies like Chime are growing, she doesn’t see them being where even younger consumers will consolidate their assets as they accumulate them.
She also sees the bank’s branches as a continuing competitive advantage, even among the young.
“They understand that maybe while they’ll put some money at these companies, when things go wrong or they need something different, out-of-the ordinary, they’ll want a branch nearby,” says Luft. She believes there’s a level of trust that a major bank like Citi engenders that fintechs don’t offer, and that that is something the bank can trade on.
Read next: Retail Bankers Are Adopting AI for All the Wrong Reasons
