Munir Nanji has filled the vacant position of Asia-Pacific regional bank services group head in Cit's global transaction services business, three months after the bank split the joint bank services and public sector head role and appointed Sanjeev Jain regional public sector head.
Based in Hong Kong, Nanji is charged with continuing to build relationships with regional financial institution clients, providing them with innovative products and solutions and enhancing customer and employee satisfaction within the group across Citi's 18 Asia-Pacific markets. He reports to Anthony Nappi, Hong Kong-based managing director and Asia-Pacific regional head of global transaction services, and Bharat Sarpeshkar, New York-based managing director and global head of the bank services group. Nanji's appointment was effective last week.
Citi has approximately 50 staff in its regional bank services group across Asia-Pacific.
Akash Rathke, Asia-Pacific regional head of the bank services and public sector group since March 2008, left the role in the fourth quarter of 2009. He is now responsible for bank client relationship management in Citi's financial institutions group.
Last year, Citi's regional bank services group won mandates from the Agricultural Bank of China to provide on-site cheque services for international payment processing and from South Korea's Kookmin Bank to enhance its international payments capabilities with the US bank's 135 currency international payments processing solution.
"Asia-Pacific has been a huge growth engine for the continual success of Citi's bank services group," said Nappi on Nanji's appointment. A representative of the bank added that there has been a significant "spike" in Citi's bank services group business in recent months.
Citi split the joint regional bank services and public sector head position with the appointment of Jain as regional public sector group head last December. At Sibos in September 2009, Francesco Vanni d'Archirafi, global head of Citi global transaction services, told FinanceAsia that the public sector group was an important and growing client segment for the bank.
During the past few years, the bank has won an increasing number of public sector mandates from various government pension and social security agencies around Asia-Pacific; one example is its automated import tax collection solution for Indonesia's customs office in February 2009.
Nanji relocated to Hong Kong from Lagos, Nigeria where he was Citi's trade head for Africa and global transaction services head for Nigeria and west and central Africa for three years. Prior to that, he held senior roles in the bank including head of global transaction services for several markets in Central Europe.
In 2009, Citi's Asia-Pacific global transaction services revenue fell 6% year-on-year to $2.5 billion, while net profit increased 3% over the same period to $1.2 billion.
