Citigroup Inc. was the largest company in the world in December, 2007. It had total assets of $2.2 trillion. Citigroup Inc. was formed on October 8, 1998 when Citicorp and the Traveler’s Group merged. By 2008, it was the world’s largest bank by revenues with over 358,000 staff and 200 million customer accounts in 100 countries. The Citicorp piece is a multinational banking corporation which operates in more than 100 countries. Travelers Group businesses include credit services, consumer finance, brokerage, and insurance (Wikipedia 2008).
Citicorp was originally known as the Bank of New York. It was established on September 14th, 1812. The first acting president was Samuel Osgood. By 1895 Citicorp became the largest American bank and soon thereafter became known as an innovator in financial services. By the mid 1970’s, under the command of CEO Walter Writston, Citicorp started issuing Citicards which was the start of the 24 hour ATM. By the early 1980’s Citicorp expanded and started offering credit cards. They soon regained their title as the largest bank and adding the largest issuer of credit cards and charge cards in the world (Wikipedia 2008).
Travelers Group began as Commercial Credit which was a subsidiary of Control Data Systems. The company then bought out the conglomerate, Primerica, taking its name and began using a cross-selling strategy where each branch would sell each other’s services. In 1992, Primerica and Travelers Insurance formed a strategic alliance which then became Travelers Inc. primarily selling insurances. In the mid-90’s, Travelers merged with Aetna Property and Casualty, Inc and then with Salomon Brothers, a major bond trader and investment bank (Wikipedia 2008).
In November 2007, the housing market in the United States started to take a downward turn. With loan defaults on the rise, the loans on Citigroup’s books were overdue for a revaluation. Due to the housing market decline and consumer spending cuts, Citigroup announced they expected to post a loss of between 6 and 11 million dollars. Citigroup’s stock plummeted. (Reference)
For the year ending December 31, 2007 Citigroup saw a significant decrease in net income. In 2006, Citigroup ended the year with net income of over 21 billion. By 2007, their net income had fallen to just over 3 billion. (Reference)
The trouble continued into the first quarter of 2008, when Citigroup was unable to sell home equity loans and began to cut jobs in its mortgage division.
... J. P. Morgan and Company to reflect his power. Morgan also got a stranglehold on several other industries by buying out Carnegie Steel, oil companies, and railroads. Morgan soon went back to his roots and started acquiring more banks, financial firms, and insurance providers. (Moritz 35-39) Today, J. P. Morgan and Company is known as JPMorgan Chase, easily the world's largest global financial services firm.
A majority of mortgage defaults that Americans used were on subprime mortgage loans, which were high-interest-rate loans lent to people with high risk credit rates (Brue). Despite knowing the risks, the Federal government encouraged major banks to lend out these loans to buyers, in hopes, of broadening ho...
Capital One uses IT through its information-based strategy (IBS) to “record, organize, and analyze data on the characteristics and behaviors of their customers,” as stated by CEO Richard Fairbank. Their philosophy was to exploit information by constructing scientific models that could be used to both assess the creditworthiness of potential cardholders through FICO scoring, and to customize product offerings for existing ones. This was done through data mining, sorting, customizing offers and marketing campaigns, and then analyzing this data to see what campaigns worked – for what reason and what it returned in revenue and profit generation. This differs from other financial institutions in that these other institutions were compiling data manually, accepting applicants based upon debt-income ratios and were all charging the same interest rate and annual fee.
It can be argued that the economic hardships of the great recession began when interest rates were lowered by the Federal Reserve. This caused a bubble in the housing market. Housing prices plummeted, home prices plummeted, then thousands of borrowers could no longer afford to pay on their loans (Koba, 2011). The bubble forced banks to give out homes loans with unreasonably high risk rates. The response of the banks caused a decline in the amount of houses purchased and “a crisis involving mortgage loans and the financial securities built on them” (McConnell, 2012 p.479). The effect on the economy was catastrophic and caused a “pandemic” of foreclosures that effected tens of thousands home owners across the U.S. (Scaliger, 2013). The debt burden eventually became unsustainable and the U.S. crisis deepened as the long-term effect on bank loans would affect not only the housing market, but also the job market.
The banking industry is under pressure in today’s business climate. Banks have been through big changes. There is opportunity, but there is also increasing competition. To be the preferred bank means changing “good enough” into a unique value proposition. And that means changing the way people have always done things, change on this level requires cutting edge technology. Change cannot be achieved with a simple directive or surface adjustment especially within the banking industry. It requires an innovative rethink of the entire system, in a strong partnership between bank leaders and their change agents. New systems and policies must support the strategy to be successful. The real test of a good strategy implementation plan is whether the people understand the strategy, are motivated and enabled to implement it, and actually start achieving its goals.
The United States government in 1816 chartered the Second Bank of the United States. It had a 20-year charter, which was to expire in 1836. Despite this, the Bank was privately owned and during the age of Jackson, the president was Nicholas Biddle. The Bank was large in comparison to other banks, being responsible for 15-20% of bank loans in the United States and accounting for 40% of the bank notes in circulation. Also, the Bank held a specie reserve of 50% of the value of its notes, when normally other banks only had a specie reserve of 10-25% (Davis 1).
Company name: The Vanguard Group Corporate headquarters: Valley Forge, Pennsylvania Founded: May 1, 1975 First fund: Wellington Fund (inception date: July 1, 1929) Offices: Valley Forge, Pennsylvania; Scottsdale, Arizona; Charlotte, North Carolina; Melbourne, Australia; Brussels, Belgium; Singapore; Tokyo, Japan Total assets: Approximately $850 billion in U.S. mutual funds (as of 05/31/2005) Number of funds: 130 domestic funds (including variable annuity portfolios); 35 additional funds in international markets Number of investors: 18 million institutional and individual shareholder accounts Chairman and CEO: John J. Brennan Number of employees (crew): More than 10,000 U.S.-based Largest fund: Vanguard® 500 Index Fund—$104 billion (Admiral™ and Investor share classes, as of 5/31/2005) Aggregate expense ratio: 0.23% (expenses as a percentage of 2004 average complex net assets) Mailing address: P.O. Box 2600, Valley Forge, PA 19482 Website address: www.Vanguard.com
In 1852 Henry Wells and William Fargo founded Wells, Fargo & Co. The newly founded company offered banking to their customers such
In the late 1800s' economy there were many Americans who considered themselves to be business affiliated, but really didn't understand the full meaning of a business or knowing any financial obligations within a business. However, there was one peculiar man John Pierpont Morgan also know as J.P. Morgan who stood out to be a triumphant entrepreneur of many Americans in the late 1800s U.S. Economy.
When American Express first came about, it would fit the assumed picture of a typical call center: a tall building filled with thousands of service agents aligned on every floor. For years, a typical work-day for each employee consisted of repeated, recorded, scripted, and timed phone conversations. Today, though, it is a whole new world. Today, no two conversations are the same. American Express finally realized that opening the gates and allowing employees be themselves would sell more product than ever before.
It started with one of the founders, Henry Wells. He was an agent under the first express company in 1839. The company was designed to transport money and valuables safely in New York, New York. Wells was focused on expansion towards the Midwestern areas but was unable to until he branched out on his own. Wells was able to partner up with William G. Fargo and launched an express service from buffalo to Midwestern cities. Later on, in 1849, a wealthy transportation mogul that was partnered with a direct competitor proposed that wells and Fargo should eliminate competition with wasson & co. by partnering up and becoming one. In March of 1850, they were able to do just that, and American Express was
John Pierpont Morgan is considered one of the founding fathers of the modern United States economy. He was an industrial genius that is accredited with the founding of many companies including General Electric and AT&T. However, Pierpont is looked upon as a saint and demon the same. He received a honorary degree from Harvard university that read: "Public citizen, patron of literature and art, prince among merchants, who by his skill, wisdom and courage, has twice in times of stress repelled a national danger of financial panic." But Robert LaFollette, the Wisconsin progressive, saw him as "a beefy, red-faced thick-necked financial bully, drunk with wealth and power." Despite conflicting opinion on his persona, his influence and character shaped the business world more so than any other person at the turn of the century. Morgan was a banker, railroad czar, industrialist, financier, philanthropist, yachtsman, and ladies' man. He was king to a handful of millionaire barons who controlled the country's wealth in an era of little government regulation.
The Bank of Canada is Canada’s central bank, whose current Governor is Mike Carney. It was founded in 1934 by the Bank of Canada Act of the same year. The country’s banking system was quite stable even before the Bank of Canada was established, mainly thanks to its branch banking structure, and showed little interest in central banking in the early 1900s. In addition, the banking system was somewhat being regulated by the Canadians Bankers’ Association. However, as the Great Depression took Canada by storm, talks about its then financial state were brewing. Some even questioned the country’s ability to meet larger demands. The central bank was formed from the Act in 1934, and starting running in 1935, but as a privately owned institution. Then, when William Mackenzie King was re-elected as Prime Minister after a full term by Richard Bennet, the new government made an amendment to the Bank of Canada Act, making the bank publicly owned by 1938, as it is today (Bank of Canada: History). Its primary objective was to be able to support financial and economic wellbeing of our country (Go Currency: Bank of Canada). In that way, it has many roles and functions as a central bank, which I will expand in the coming paragraphs.
The Commercial International Bank (CIB), was first established in 1975 as a joint venture between the National Bank of Egypt (51%) and the Chase Manhattan Bank (49%) under the name "Chase National Bank of Egypt”. Following Chase's decision to divest its equity stake in 1987, National Bank of Egypt (NBE) increased its shareholding to 99.9%, and the Bank changed its name to Commercial International Bank (Egypt) S.A.E.
Citibank was based in New York, which had usury laws that prohibited banks from charging more than 12 percent on loans. They were loaning money out at 12 percent while they had to pay 20 percent on interest. They could not afford to operate in those situations. Walter Wriston former chairman of Citibank said that they “had a credit card division that was hemorrhaging money” (Wriston PBS article). In 1981 they moved out to South Dakota to advance its credit card operation, because South Dakota had removed its usury