Citi to close private banking unit in China

Citigroup will close its private banking unit in China, which had sought to attract funds from the country's fast-growing ranks of millionaires, as it streamlines its businesses, sources familiar with the situation said yesterday.

The three-year-old unit's operations, serving high net-worth clients, will be folded into Citigroup's consumer banking arm as part of an internal restructuring of its wealth management services in China, the sources said.

Several dozen employees at the unit will be transferred to other positions inside the bank, including the consumer banking business, said the sources, who declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

A Citigroup spokesman in Shanghai declined to comment.

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