Rajeev Kakar

'We have added more than 300 staff in the UAE alone in the past six months,' says Rajeev Kakar, an 18 year Citibank veteran who started in his native India and has headed the bank in Turkey and Egypt before moving to the UAE.

'But this aggressive growth pattern has been repeated across the 10 countries that are in this new region. We are certainly one of the fastest growing regions of Citibank, and maybe the fastest.'

Mr. Kakar can point to his time in Egypt where he opened the first Citibank consumer branch in 2000. Today there are nine branches with 500 sales people. 'Egypt has a population of 70 million and huge potential for a global bank,' he says. 'It is the same story in Turkey where we now have a very strong presence and in Pakistan.'

Citigroup has been in the Middle East for nearly 50 years. Within the TMEA region, Citigroup is strongly represented in 10 countries - Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia, and Turkey.

Perhaps a sign of Mr. Kakar's very sincere approach to customer service is the revolutionary 8am to 8pm opening hours, six days a week, that Citibank has introduced recently in the UAE.

'We want to offer our customers the best in all channels,' he says. 'Older customers generally want face-to-face contact with the bank. Younger customers often prefer the Citibank Online service on the Internet, or telephone banking.

'Our commitment to training staff is the key to delivering the best service. Aggressive growth needs training to sustain it. There is nothing worse than promising and not delivering to customers.'

The way a global bank like Citibank operates is to gradually roll- out the same services to different countries around the world, establishing a global benchmark for quality. But as Mr. Kakar explains the roll-out of services is having to move faster to meet rising customer expectations.

'On the Internet we have CitiDirect for corporate customers and Citibank Online for retail banking, and across the region there is a consistent look and feel to the websites. But all the countries are not necessarily at the same level of development.

'Our Turkish operation has been on the Internet for five years and over 50 per cent of banking transactions are online, whereas we launched Internet banking in Pakistan just three months ago and we should go live in Bahrain very soon. In the UAE we were the first international bank to offer online banking in 2000.'

Given that pattern of development it is not surprising to learn that the UAE is the test-bed for the roll-out of Citibank Wealth Management products. This involves a sophisticated analysis of the client's financial profile and requirements.

'This is not just about selling financial products,' says Mr. Kakar. 'We want to educate people in financial matters and help them realize their objectives. Then we have the state-of-the-art products to help them build and manage a model portfolio if that is what they decide.'

Citibank is also adding incremental value to customers by developing alliances with global insurance providers, such as AIG, to broaden the range of products that it can offer, and Mr. Kakar hints that this is the way product development will go in the near future.

On the credit card front too, he sees much room for expansion even in a market like the UAE. 'We have not scratched the surface in the UAE. Cash is still a big rival here to cards despite there being absolutely no good reason to use cash. This market is not saturated.'

Citibank clearly aims to remain competitive in this highly competitive market, and is offering 50% more Skywards Miles on its co-branded Emirates credit card this summer to ward off competition from local rival MeMiles from Emirates International Bank.

These are exciting times for Citibank in the region that Mr. Kakar now heads from the Dubai office. For he sees no let up in the aggressive growth path for some years to come, and many more new opportunities in the pipeline. Staff numbers will grow and grow.