Citi appoints Bajaj to new South Asia role

Citi has appointed Ashish Bajaj as head of CitiÆs commercial banking and global subsidiaries business for South Asia. This is a newly created role which adds Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to the earlier head of commercial banking role which covered only India.

Bajaj will look after client coverage for small and mid-market enterprises and subsidiaries of global corporates in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Bajaj is a managing director at Citi and currently heads global transaction services for South Asia. He will continue in this role as well.

Bajaj will continue to report to Sanjay Nayar, CEO of South Asia, and will additionally report to Farhan Faruqui, Asia-Pacific head of corporate and commercial banking.

"Our commercial banking business in South Asia is very successful and we believe Ashish is the right person to build on that,ö says Nayar in a written statement. ôThere is tremendous opportunity in this space especially as customers look for sophisticated and global banking solutions.ö

Bajaj has been with Citi for 21 years and worked across offices in New York, London and India.

Citi was early to spot the opportunity to service IndiaÆs emerging local corporates and set up an SME-focused unit in 1998. Today its balance sheet size in this segment is over $2 billion across 22,000 clients in 28 cities.

BajajÆs new commercial banking responsibility has been precipitated by the resignation of Sandeep Ghosh, Citi veteran who used to head commercial banking for India. Ghosh resigned in August to move to RBS to kick-start an offering to serve small- and medium-enterprises across Asia.