The German retail banking arm of Citibank, part of the Citigroup financial giant, saw the number of interested German parties drop to one when Commerzbank withdrew from the race.
There is interest from outside Germany still, but within the borders of the country only Deutsche Bank remains an interested party. A couple of other big European players are looking at Citibank in Germany with interest, with a move expected before the end of the month. It continues what has been a turbulent time in the German banking market as a number of organisations have changed hands recently.
With around 3.25 million customers the German Citibank is expecting offers in the region of EUR4 to EUR5 billion, especially as it runs profitably and is one of the leaders in consumer financing, generating handsome returns.
Citigroup, the huge financial organisation of which Citibank is a part, is being urged to break up by some union representatives.
A union president has written to the Citibank Chairman asking him to give some value back to the shareholders by breaking up the business into smaller parts. He does not want to see the supermarket approach of offering everything continued, preferring a more targeted approach.
Shares in Citigroup have fallen by over 60 percent in the last 12 months and it is felt that were the businesses to be split up so they stand on their own merits share prices in most of them would rise. Citibank is a part of all this and although there is no expectation of a shake up taking place it will still be interesting to see where the share price goes on the back of the discussion.
Research carried out by the Abbey National has shown that around 20 percent of UK consumers have all their finances dealt with by just one provider. They feel it is simpler this way.
On top of these people who have already gone to one supplier there is another 18 percent who are seriously thinking about it. Between these two groups that is almost 40 percent of people looking to make their finances easier to manage. Does this say something about the population as a whole or the finance companies themselves wonder Abbey National?
On average we have 3 different finance organisations we deal with, as well as three passwords and three PIN numbers. No wonder people want to simplify things. The Abbey National do not advocate using just one password or PIN number though since this has a detrimental effect in security.
