Your choice, your rewards
MANILA, Philippines - It could very well be the relationship that will last you a lifetime — someone you can count on in good times and bad, who will give you great advice, tell you how things stand the way they really do, and whose only interest is to make your life better.
Sounds too good to be true? Not really.
We’re talking about what a Citigold relationship manager (RM) is all about, the person that Citigold members turn to for their banking and investment needs. The best part is, your RM is supported by a team of experts that includes a Citigold associate who helps you on a daily basis and acts as your RM if he is unavailable for any reason, a phone executive that you can call 24/7 for your banking transactions, and an investment specialist who will work with your RM to help you understand a range of investment tools and products suitable for your needs, risk profile and time horizon. Apart from all this, Citi’s local and global financial experts make sense of all the information culled from around the world so that it is useful to you when you’re making financial decisions.
This is what differentiates Citigold — which starts at an investment of P4 million — from other banks’ premium programs, says Vipin Agrawal, Citi Retail Bank director. “We have customers who have been with their RMs for 10 to 15 years and they value this relationship. We bring the team-based wealth management approach to the table, which we believe is different from other banks who may give you one person. As a client, you are looking for experts. You are a wealthy person and you want somebody to help you make better decisions. That’s where our global expertise and research come in — it’s global knowledge translated to meaningful insight to help you plan and manage your wealth better.”
Agrawal says the relationship starts with a Citigold Conversation, wherein your team helps determine your investment profile. “Your profile is a function of what life stage you’re in, what your financial goals are. That’s actually the starting point and this determines the kind of portfolio you should have. We ask a set of questions, like about your outlook on risks. Are you willing to take a risk on the principal for a higher return, or do you want the principal always protected? This is important because it also helps customers understand themselves better. They may think they’re risky investors but they’re not, or vice versa.”
There is no one ideal investment portfolio, he says, each one is different from the other — and each approach is different, too. Young entrepreneurs, for example, take more risks because their outlook is different from their parents’. They may want to allocate their assets between a deposit, bonds and equities.
“When you’re in your 20s and 30s you’re wiling to take more risks compared to when you reach your 50s and 60s. The outlook also depends on how ambitious you are in growing your wealth.”
Agrawal says the Gold Conversation happens in different kinds of settings — it could be a one-on-one meeting with your RM or it could be in a slightly bigger setting — say, over lunch with 10 to 20 other clients and a financial specialist is invited to give a talk. In one lunch that Agrawal attended, the bank’s research head presented Citigold members reports on what’s going on in the Philippines and the global economy. “ He discussed how we can expect the market to move and the investment opportunities to capitalize on the upturn of the market. When we talk about Citigold Conversation, it’s about bringing insightful information to you — not just raw information. You can be watching 10 different channels on TV and getting all these pieces of information on the Internet — it can be very confusing and you don’t know what it means to you. Our research analysts — the best in this business — synthesize this information and make it simpler for you to understand and make meaning out of it all. Then the client is guided on what he should do with his portfolio. We do this for every client, obviously more frequently with those who are active in their portfolio.”
So what kind of investors do Filpinos make? Agrawal — who has worked for Citibank in the past 19 years and has been posted in India, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia — says that Filipinos tend to be more on the conservative side compared with other regional markets. “And that’s all right because at the end of the day we are trying to fulfill the clients’ needs. We are trying to help achieve their financial goals and that is really the focus of our business. We don’t treat each client the same way. We are customizing solutions for each one. We do have a larger share of deposits and bonds, but as their lifestyles are evolving, we are seeing more customers taking risks to really grow their portfolios. We’re seeing some shift.”
And now Citigold is offering the Citi Market Linked Instrument (MLI), suitable for those who are just starting out in the world of investment or those looking to diversify their portfolio, as the minimum investment is only P1 million. It allows you to potentially maximize your returns with principal protection.
As an added perk, Citibank is offering the “My Choice, My Rewards” promo until Dec. 31. It features a catalogue of special gifts and privileges that you can get for your investment bookings. For instance, between P1 and P3.9 million, you can choose from lunch or dinner buffet gift certificates for two at Edsa Shangri-La’s Heat Café or at Hyatt Hotel and Casino’s Market Café, or gift certificates from Rustan’s. Between P4 and P5.9 million investment bookings, you can get a lauriat set menu at Hyatt’s Li Li restaurant or at Edsa Shangri-La’s Heat Café for four, or Rustan’s GCs worth P4,000. Or you can choose from travel gifts like a Delsey bag, certificates from The Travel Club or ROX, Nokia 7210, Samsung Digicam or Automatic Centre GCs worth P4,000. For P6 million and up, the gifts go up as well — Delsey travel sets, GCs worth P9,000 from ROX, Automatic Centre and Rustan’s, Nokia 6303, Canon digital camera, among the many offerings.
Existing primary clients are also eligible for the gifts if they bring in fresh funds of at least P1 million or its foreign currency equivalent.
The question, of course, is — do the very wealthy still care about getting these perks? “Yes, of course. People like free things. We are human beings,” says Agrawal. “Anyting nice, we want to have it — it could be a $10 value or a $500 value. Even rich people like rewards.”
The great thing about it is you can choose your own rewards.
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For inquiries about Citigold and Citi MLI, call the Citigold Wealth Management hotline at 995-9888 (Metro Manila) or (032) 234-9888 (Cebu).
