Citi goes live in Indonesia

Citigroup has gone live this week on the Indonesia stock exchange with a seat that will allow it to offer its clients direct access to the Indonesian market. FinanceAsia spoke with Citi's regional equities head Adrian Faure about the new seat and the banks further expansion plans in the Asean region.

Why have you decided to take this seat and why has it taken you a year or so to get it?

Indonesia is a priority market for Citi in Asia and we are seeing increased flows from our global investors into the country. The IDX membership completes the range of our markets product platform for our clients and gives us the ability to offer them better access to the Indonesia stockmarket through underwriting and equity brokerage activities.

We already have a strong research team in Indonesia and this seat is a natural extension so that we can provide market leading research along with sales and trading services to our clients.

It has taken us a year or so as we had to wait for a seat to become available and then the necessary approval and regulatory process have to be completed with testing before you can go live. We are delighted to be live and have already completed several transactions for our global and local clients. The timing is also excellent as we are in Indonesia today for our fourth annual Indonesia Investor Conference which again has drawn huge interest from the global investor base with more than 80 institutional investors in town this week for the event.

What staffing plans do you have for this business in Indonesia? And is this part of a wider build up in the Asean region.

We also announced this week the appointment of Hasan Ukim as head of equities sales. Hasan joined in January as head of dealing and was promoted to his current role. He was previously with J.P. Morgan Indonesia. We have also hired Santy Tandiana as an equity salesperson. She was previously with Bank of America Merrill Lynch Indonesia.