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First State Bank

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Industry	Banking, Finance
Founded	1905
Headquarters	Gainesville, Texas
Key people	Frank Morris — CEO Ben Hatcher — President
Products	Financial Services
Website	www.F-S-B.com

Citibank, a major international bank, is the consumer banking arm of financial services giant Citigroup. Citibank was founded in 1812 as the City Bank of New York, later First National City Bank of New York. As of March 2010, Citigroup is the third largest bank holding company in the United States by domestic deposits, after Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase.

Citibank has retail banking operations in more than 100 countries and territories around the world. More than half of its 1,400 offices are in the United States, mostly in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco/Silicon Valley, and Miami. More recently, Citibank has expanded its operations in the Boston, Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas, and Washington D.C. metropolitan areas, albeit with a mixed record of success. It was reported that Citigroup executives were pleased with the performance of the Boston branches, but were less impressed with the Philadelphia experiment, according to a person familiar with the situation.

On September 24, 2009, The Wall Street Journal reported that Citi planned to narrow the focus of Citigroup's U.S. branch network to just six major metropolitan areas, including New York, Washington, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles, where Citi has a substantial presence but ranks no higher than No. 3 in deposits. The article also noted that Citi could abandon or scale back where it is an also-ran, including Boston, Philadelphia and parts of Texas, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

In addition to the standard banking transactions, Citibank offers insurance, credit card and investment products. Their online services division is among the most successful in the field, claiming about 15 million users.

As a result of the Global financial crisis of 2008–2009 and huge losses in the value of its subprime mortgage assets, Citibank was rescued by the U.S. government under plans agreed for Citigroup. On November 23, 2008, in addition to initial aid of $25 billion, a further $25 billion was invested in the corporation together with guarantees for risky assets amounting to $306 billion.

Bank History

Manhattan Chinatown Citibank branch (New York City)

Chartered in 1905, First State Bank is the oldest state bank in Texas. Combining the friendly customer service of hometown banking with our innovative, state-of-the-art technology, we bring you a legacy of banking experience.

Perhaps our greatest legacy is a dedication to our community and the people it serves. The commitment of employees, officers, and directors with the support of the community has enabled First State Bank to attain the distinction of being Texas' first state chartered bank to reach the centennial milestone. We are proud of our past and excited about what the future has to offer.

First State Bank

Automated banking card

Shortly afterward, the bank launched the Citicard, which allowed customers to perform all transactions without a passbook. Branches also had terminals with simple one line displays that allowed customers to get basic account information without a bank teller. When automatic teller machines were later introduced, customers could use their existing Citicard.

Automatic teller machines

Citibank was one of the first U.S. banks to introduce automatic teller machines in the 1970s, in order to give 24-hour access to accounts. Customers could use their existing Citicard in this machine to withdraw cash and make deposits, and were already accustomed to using a machine with a card to get information that previously required a teller.

In April 2006, Citibank struck a deal with 7-Eleven to put its automated teller machine (ATMs) in more than 5,500 convenience stores in the U.S. In the same month, it also announced it would sell all of its Buffalo and Rochester New York branches and accounts to M&T Bank.

Statewide expansion

Citibank's major presence in California is fairly recent. The bank had only a handful of branches in that state before acquiring the assets of California Federal Bank in 2002 with Citicorp's purchase of Golden State Bancorp which had earlier merged with First Nationwide Mortgage Corp.

In 2001, Citibank settled a $45 million class action lawsuit for improperly assessing late fees. Following this Citibank lobbied the United States Congress to pass legislation that would limit class action lawsuits to $5 million unless they were initiated on a federal level. Some consumer advocate websites report that Citibank is still improperly assessing late fees.

In August 2004, Citibank entered the Texas market with the purchase of First American Bank of Bryan, Texas. The deal established Citi's retail banking presence in Texas, giving Citibank over 100 branches, $3.5 billion in assets and approximately 120,000 new customers in the state. First American Bank was renamed Citibank Texas after the take-over was completed on March 31, 2005.

In 2008, Citibank was crowned Deal of the Year - Securitisation Deal of the Year at the 2008 ALB Japan Law Awards.

Historical data

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  Asset/Liability Ratio
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  Net Income

CitiBank was the third largest bank at the end of 2008 as an individual bank. (Not including subsidiaries)

Forbes Magazine

In June 22, 2009's issue of Forbes Magazine, First State Bank was featured as one of the few, long established and up-and-coming financial institutions that are building on Texas's strong banking tradition.

Key people

• Frank Morris — CEO
  
• Ben Hatcher — President
  

External links

• First State Bank official web site