GC Perspective: Pat Curtin on Citigroup’s Global Custody Strategy

Citi have recently appointed Pat Curtin, a GC Legend, as its new global head of Sales and Client Management for Global Custody, Fund Services and Agency Lending, following the creation of a new Custody and Fund Services (CFS) unit. In addition earlier this week, Citi won a global custody mandate for U.S. asset manager John Hancock for its mutual funds worth over $29 billion, one of Citi’s largest custody mandates. Global Custodian speaks to Curtin about trends in the global custody industry, and how Citi will meet these trends in the forthcoming year.

GC: How does the mandate reflect Citi’s commitment to global custody?

PC: “We have spent in the last several years really building our platform both in terms of technology, operating models and service centres around the world. This mandate is a very powerful manifestation of the marketplace recognising that business. The significance of this mandate from John Hancock, one of the largest mutual fund managers in the U.S., for their global funds is a critical piece of evidence of not just our commitment to the business but our capabilities as being world class.

GC: What trends are you currently seeing in the custody industry?

PC: “The regulations in the institutional investor, asset manager and asset owner space are forcing them to focus on asset safety and asset segregation. For asset managers trying to create operational alpha, we have an integrated custody platform. Because of our direct market access and all of the low markets we are connected to, we offer an ability to meet their increasing need for more transparency on settlement times and later cut off times in terms of corporate actions.

Also from a fund accounting point of view, our technology platforms really allow asset managers, like John Hancock, the ability to have full transparency to their net asset value process. That’s really important for fund managers that are doing their own fund administration whilst outsourcing their accounting.

GC: Going forward, what areas will Citi’s global custody strategy focus on?

PC: “We are continuing to target large global asset managers and asset owners, with a specific focus on the U.S. marketplace, the U.K, and Continental Europe, and have a big focus on the hubs in Asia in Hong Kong and Singapore, and continue to service asset managers that have local requirements in the emerging markets. As fund managers look to create local products and to distribute to local investors, we continue to target those needs across a spectrum of custody and fund services.

GC: Where are the real growth opportunities for Citi?

PC: The real growth story is for asset managers that are multi-product, multi-jurisdictional, multi-asset class, and multi-client. So the broader, more complex and more global the asset manager is, the greater we see opportunities from that manager. If that manager then utilises a broad variety of investment strategies, across equities, fixed income, derivatives, private equity etc, that’s all the more reason that complexity fits into our strategy.

GC: With the wave of regulations, how is Citi helping clients with their requirments?

PC: One of the essences of our product strategy is to meet our client’s regulatory requirements. The client owns the regulatory risk that they may face as an asset manager or asset owner, we see our role as enabling them to comply with their requirements by providing the necessary data or reporting they need, or in the case of custody, the appropriate asset segregation or asset soundness. This is core to our strategy.