Nurturing Hong Kong’s Next FinTech Generation

HONG KONG, CHINA - Media OutReach - October 9, 2017 - Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C)

A group of 60 university students from Hong Kong visited Citi Ventures in San Francisco in September, as part of their week-long FinTech-focused entrepreneurship boot camp at Stanford Graduate School of Business in Silicon Valley under the Cyberport University Partnership Programme (CUPP).  The students learnt first-hand from veteran tech-bankers on how technology implementations and usage work in the banking world and were given a glimpse of some of the innovations that Citi is working on.

Ms. Angel Ng, Consumer Business Manager of Citibank Hong Kong said, "At Citi, we play a pivotal role in fostering the development of FinTech in Hong Kong, to build a digital ecosystem. We will continue to actively collaborate with different key stakeholders and close partners like Cyberport, to cultivate the next generation of FinTech talents in Hong Kong.

"We believe the participants from this program have already gained global insights and a unique understanding on how Citi's innovation works and our corporate culture, broadening their horizon to get a closer look of what the world's leading digital bank can offer."

The students visited Citi Ventures on September 22 and were received by Valla Vakili, Head of Ventures Studio and Suman Natarajan, Vice President of Venture Investing. They explained how Citi Ventures partners with Citi's businesses to explore new solutions and capabilities for the bank and its customers.  They also addressed the U.S. FinTech landscape and how the Venture Investing team partners with entrepreneurs to make strategic investments in start-ups that are developing solutions across Data Analytics & Machine Learning, Commerce & Payments, Financial Technology, Marketing & Customer Experience and Security & Enterprise IT.

"We were pleased to welcome the students from the Cyberport University Partnership Programme to Citi Ventures," said Valla Vakili, Head of Ventures Studio. "Engaging with diverse and emerging talent is an important part of our innovation model because it enables us to bring different perspectives to the table to uncover new solutions for our customers."

Another group of students from the Chinese University of Hong Kong will visit the award-winning Citi Innovation Lab in Singapore, which focuses on exploring new ideas and service concepts for transaction banking for institutions. Citi has a global network of labs in the U.S., Mexico, Ireland, Israel, and Singapore that drive innovation throughout the bank's businesses.

About Citi

Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management.

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