Jane Fraser Talks China Outlook, Citi's Growth in Asia

Summary

Podcast Summary: Jane Fraser Talks China Outlook, Citi's Growth in Asia

Podcast: Bloomberg Talks
Host: Bloomberg Interviewer
Guest: Jane Fraser, Chair & CEO, Citi
Date: November 14, 2025

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Overview

This episode features Citi’s Chair and CEO, Jane Fraser, in a candid interview during the 20th anniversary of Citi’s China conference in Shanghai. Fraser discusses Citi’s strategy in China and Asia, her vision for the bank’s growth amid ongoing global de-risking, restructuring moves, wealth management focus, and digital transformation, as well as her outlook on economic trends in the US and globally. She also addresses misconceptions about Citi’s commitment to China, the role of AI in banking, the firm's exposure in Russia, and macroeconomic risks such as inflation and potential bubbles in AI investments.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Citi's Evolving Strategy in China and Asia

• Shift in Conference Tone:

  • The China conference has evolved from being "China for China" to attracting both global and local investors interested in outward and inward strategies.
    "It's moved away from a China for China story...we have had huge interest and a large number of investors and companies coming to China to understand what is happening here as well as the Chinese companies and investors that are looking much more externally now." – Jane Fraser [01:09]

• De-Risking vs. Decoupling:

  • Both the US and China seek transactional stability rather than full decoupling.
    "We can move ahead and have a more stable relationship between...both sides. It's transactional but it's in both sides' interests, and we see our client base navigating this." – Jane Fraser [01:44]

• Restructuring & Strategic Focus:

  • Citi has exited retail banking and restructured investments, focusing on supporting international and cross-border clients, both incoming and outbound.
    "What we have done is focus our strategy and grow. We are following our international clients around the world...Chinese companies innovating at pace and also looking at expanding internationally." – Jane Fraser [02:54]

• Misconceptions of Citi Retreating:

  • Fraser refutes the notion that Citi is pulling back from China, emphasizing growth and innovation.
    "Citi is on the front foot. We are innovating, we are growing, we're helping support our clients...This is a firm with clarity of purpose, with clarity of direction." – Jane Fraser [04:00]

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2. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On China’s Manufacturing Edge:
  "50% of all robotic companies in the world are here in China. China is writing the next chapter of its economy around advanced manufacturing, around innovation." – Jane Fraser [04:20]

• On Global Deal Flows & New Corridors:
  "We're seeing new corridors opening up and the scale of ambitions not just in China, but in Asia...The GCC expecting Asia to be its largest trading partner by next year. Brazil’s connection into Asia and into China again is very robust." – Jane Fraser [05:35]

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3. Wealth Management & Asia Growth

• International Wealth Focus:
  • Citi's strategy is to support wealthy individuals and mid-sized companies with cross-border needs, especially as half of all new high-net-worth households will emerge in Asia over the next three years. "We're focused on serving clients who have cross-border needs...50% of all of the new high net worth households created in the next three years will be created here in Asia." – Jane Fraser [06:33]

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4. Talent, AI, and Future of Work

• Talent Strategy in the Age of AI:
  • Citi is retraining employees to leverage AI for smarter client service, seeing increased productivity but expecting job shifts, especially in coding.
    "Our productivity is up 9% year over year for our coding teams...We're going to invest in our talent. Our firm is growing and that should be able to support the needs going forward." – Jane Fraser [07:40]

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5. Major Growth Markets: India, Korea, Middle East

• Geographic Expansion:
  • Citi’s largest foreign revenues are in India, and the firm is strong in Korea and the Middle East, supporting supply chain reconfigurations and providing financial expertise. "Citi is larger in India today. We are the largest foreign firm by revenues in India...In Korea, we were the first foreign bank to open the doors..." – Jane Fraser [09:10]

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6. Divestitures & Russia Exit

• On Russia Sale:
  • The sale of Citi's Russian franchise is minor but a long-awaited step.
    "We've been winding down as many, many companies have been the franchise in Russia...but it's a tiny business. So it's in the grand scheme...it's not critical to the firm's strategy going forward." – Jane Fraser [10:54]

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7. US & Global Economic Outlook

• US Inflation & Fed Policy:

  • Fraser is cautiously optimistic about 2026, warning of possible new shocks (tariffs, labor market, asset prices), but believes in corporate resiliency and investment in innovation. "I don't think we're out of the woods yet and there's a sense that there may be another shoe to drop...But as we look further out...I think the doomsday as will be proven wrong." – Jane Fraser [11:45]

• Balance Sheet Health:

  • Citi’s loan book is robust and focused on prime and investment-grade clientele.
    "Our balance sheet is pristine...on the corporate side we're over 80% investment grade globally and on the consumer side it's about 86% prime." – Jane Fraser [12:52]

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8. AI Market and Bubble Concerns

• AI Investment Froth:
  • While there is “frothiness” in some AI-adjacent areas, core investments in infrastructure are necessary and not yet a bubble. "No one is saying that there are some real pockets of, let's call it the British understatement, frothiness in the market...But the scale and the pace of investment is unprecedented. That is for sure." – Jane Fraser [14:08]

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• [00:35] Introduction to Jane Fraser and Citi’s China conference
• [01:09] Shift in conference attitude and China’s outward focus
• [02:14] Citi’s restructuring and vision in China
• [04:00] Fraser addresses misconceptions of Citi’s China strategy
• [05:35] New global trade corridors and deal flows
• [06:33] Citi’s wealth management strategy and Asia’s high-net-worth growth
• [07:40] AI, talent re-skilling and productivity
• [09:10] Citi’s growth focus in India, Korea, and the Middle East
• [10:54] Russia divestiture and its strategic insignificance
• [11:45] US outlook, Fed, inflation risks
• [12:52] Citi’s balance sheet health and non-performing loan concerns
• [14:08] AI market’s state and bubble concerns

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Conclusion

Throughout the episode, Jane Fraser reiterates Citi’s commitment to China and Asia, a forward-looking growth mindset, and focus on cross-border, high-value clients. She is optimistic but realistic about global uncertainties, stresses the importance of stability, and emphasizes Citi’s adaptability in the era of AI and evolving global trade.

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Notable Quotes Recap

• "Citi is on the front foot. We are innovating, we are growing, we're helping support our clients." – Jane Fraser [04:00]
• "China is writing the next chapter of its economy around advanced manufacturing, around innovation." – Jane Fraser [04:20]
• "Our productivity is up 9% year over year for our coding teams." – Jane Fraser [07:40]
• "The scale and the pace of [AI] investment is unprecedented. That is for sure." – Jane Fraser [14:08]

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This summary captures the breadth of discussion, strategic vision, and thought leadership presented by Jane Fraser, providing key insights for anyone interested in Citi’s future outlook and the evolving financial landscape of Asia.

Transcript

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[Jane Fraser]

Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News we're very pleased, of.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

Course, to be Here at the 20th anniversary of Citi's China conference here in Shanghai. And we have none other than the chair and CEO Jane Fraser. Thanks so much for having us.

[Jane Fraser]

Well, we're delighted to have Bloomberg here. Thank you very much for joining our conference.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

So what do you hope to get out of this and when talking to all your guests and your clients and to understand a little bit more about the China market, which you know very well, but we're coming out of a bruising trade war. We're not even out of it yet. Right. Some say it's a truce, not necessarily a lasting peace. What has been your takeaway so far?

[Jane Fraser]

I think what's interesting this time at this conference is that it's moved away from a China for China story and instead we have had huge interest and a large number of investors and companies coming to China to understand what is happening here as well as the Chinese companies and investors that are looking much more externally now. So that really feels like a sea change here. That's pretty exciting.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

How do you serve your clients against the backdrop of two governments that are trying to de risk if not decouple?

[Jane Fraser]

I think the recent truce has brought some much needed and welcome stability here. I think we're in a position now for both sides that wanted to have a period now where we can just, we can move ahead and have a more stable relationship between. Between both of them is transactional but it's in both both sides interests and we see our client base navigating this.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

Well, yeah. What's your vision for the China as the China market as it folds into your overall restructuring plan as well? You're now chair and CEO. First time that those two roles have been joined in a couple of decades. Clear mandate to carry out your vision going forward. What does that look like when exit your consumer banking business here like you did in many markets around the world. You also sold your retail wealth management portfolio to hsbc. You got out of an investment bank JV with Orient Securities I believe and you have an outstanding license application for your wholly owned JV insecurities.

[Jane Fraser]

So Citi has been in China for, for 124 years. We have a landmark building here in Shanghai. And what we have done is focus our strategy and grow. We are following our international clients around the world. We're seeing them with renewed interest and focus in China, as we talked about. And then we're seeing the Chinese companies innovating at pace and also looking at expanding internationally. So we've been growing rapidly here with a more focused strategy. And it is, it is the power of clarity and renewed purpose in the firm.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

Now, before this interview started, you really countered. What I said is you're pulling back a little bit from China. That's not at all. You're adding headcount. How, what, what are your headcount numbers? When we. We get headlines that your IT department, maybe 3,500 jobs are going to be moving elsewhere and this and that you pulled back from retail three or four years ago.

[Jane Fraser]

Yeah, I think you're getting the story wrong.

[Indiana University Narrator]

Good.

[Jane Fraser]

Yeah.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

That's why we're here.

[Jane Fraser]

Citi is on the. Citi is on the front foot.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jane Fraser]

We are innovating, we are growing, we're helping support our clients. Our clients are both building resources, resiliency, and they are reinventing themselves with all the technological changes. That is no different in China than it is in other parts of the world. So this is, this is a firm with clarity of purpose, with clarity of direction. We know where we're headed and we are really delivering strong progress. So I'm excited by the upside that we have. I'm excited about the progress we're making. And I see it here on the ground in China, we think we move away from some of the just headwinds that we all know about on consumer spending and on the property market. You look behind that here in China, it's a manufacturing powerhouse. What are we seeing? 50% of all robotic companies in the world are here in China. China is writing the next chapter of its economy around advanced manufacturing, around innovation, as well as more Chinese companies expanding internationally. And we're both serv. 70% of the Fortune 500 that are here in China, as well as serving the Chinese companies locally, tap into global markets.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

How does that equate to what the deal flow. You see this? Who's the head of global banking, who we talked to a couple of hours ago. Extremely bullish on the amount of deal flows going into 2026. What kind of cross border with China do you see?

[Jane Fraser]

Look, I think we're seeing new corridors opening up and the scale of ambitions not just in China, but in Asia. Are higher than we see really in many parts of the world. So in these new corridors we're seeing the Middle east connecting with Asia. For the gcc, you know, they were expecting Asia to be its largest trading partner by next year. That's an entirely new set of flows. In the last five years. Brazil's connection into Asia and into China again very robust. Their major partners. So you know, the world is changing rapidly. It's adding new corridors, it's adding new flows, it's adding new wealth and scale is the name of the game.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

What will be your strategy with wealth management? You got out, as I said, the retail portion of your wealth management was sold to hsbc. But you're going to be onshore here, but you're going to do a lot of it from Hong Kong and Singapore. Right.

[Jane Fraser]

So Citi is, Citi is focused internationally, not on, not on retail banking. We are focused on serving clients who have cross border needs. That is a very vibrant segment of clients. Think of individual individuals that are driving the mid market. Companies are growing internationally. We think of the world's billionaires and wealthy that need access to global markets. And then we obviously think of investors and corporations doing so. There's a lot of engine of growth. It's going to be 50% of all of the new high net worth households created in the next three years will be created here in Asia. So our focus is on what is the wealth proposition for those. Well as supporting the companies and the engines of growth behind them.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

So what kind of hiring is going to be needed in this part of the world? Not necessarily China, but the rest of Asia. At a time when we're also seeing corporate America as they invest heavily into AI, they've had to pull back on hiring and jobs have been cut.

[Jane Fraser]

It's a, it's a great question. I think AI is certainly changing a lot of what we're expecting we're going to need in the world going forward. So from Citi's point of view, for example, we see this as an opportunity to really train up our talent. How do we empower our talent to use the AI tools so they can be smarter in front of clients? They can spend more time serving clients and coming up with solutions as opposed to the more chore elements of being a banker. We don't know how quickly it's going to change Steve. So there'll be certainly a lot of shift in coding jobs. We've seen that already. Our Productivity is up 9% year over year for our coding teams. But there's going to Be new jobs created too. None of us quite know yet exactly how the timing will play out. We know there's a lot of change ahead of that. But our approach is we're going to invest in our talent. Our firm is growing and that should be able to support the needs going forward.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

You mentioned the Middle East. I think you just came back from Riyadh. You're co chair of the U.S. saudi Business Council. I believe this also very bullish on India. Magnificent opportunity there.

[Jane Fraser]

He's biased.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

Might be a little bit biased maybe. But again, what do you hope to get from those markets as it fits into your restructuring plan and the vision that you just talked about?

[Jane Fraser]

We, the growth plans that we have going forward, because we are, we are on the front foot. I cannot stress that enough. You can see it in our results. So all of our businesses, we're taking share, we're growing very quickly and our returns are improving. So as we're looking going forward, its growth. Let's take India. Citi is larger in India today. We are the largest foreign firm by revenues in India. When I look at Korea, we where I was just that that's another market where we were the first foreign bank to open the doors in Korea. And we have a very strong position there supporting multinationals and clients. So as I look around the world, it's becoming more focused on diversification. There is also focus on reinvention. What we are doing is helping provide the strategic advice. We're helping provide the financing and structuring and arranging that. And we're also helping manage the supply chain reconfiguration. We're helping with the hedging in foreign exchange interest rates because volatility is a feature, it's not a bug of the system.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

Through your restructuring, you had to get rid of the retail side and there's. Are there other areas that you would like to divest?

[Jane Fraser]

I know you have the wrong story. Citi is about growing. We're very foot forward, very clear on our strategy and we're moving onwards.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

I only ask because again, the Russia situation is a little bit different probably than your overall strategy. We just got word that Vladimir Putin approved the sale to Renaissance Capital of your bank in Russia. Probably something that you've been wanting to do for a while, but it was held back.

[Jane Fraser]

We have been winding down as many, many companies have been the franchise in Russia, we were waiting for the final approval to be able to sell. We've got a couple more go to Renaissance, but it's a tiny, it's a tiny business. So it's in the grand scheme of where Citi is, where we're investing on what we're doing. It will be good to get that done but it's not, it's not critical to the firm's strategy going forward.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

Let's talk about the outlook in the United States right now as we head into 2026. We saw the market reaction overnight. Simply we're seeing that the Fed's equation, the bets for possible easing coming up and now 5050 or til below that because of the specter of inflation. What is your outlook for Fed action going into the new year and the specter of inflation rising?

[Jane Fraser]

Look, I don't think we're out of the woods yet and there's a sense that there may be another shoe to drop. It could be in tariffs or in the labor market, could be in the asset prices that are quite high in the States. But all of that said we're quite optimistic about 26. The challenge for the Fed right now is with the government shutdown we all have a dot of up to date data which we could do with. It's hard to make these calls of exactly what's going on whilst we're waiting for the information. But, but as we look further out into next year I think the resiliency of the corporate balance sheets, the strength companies leaning in to innovation, investing in AI you know there is some, I think the doomsday as will be proven wrong.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

We're a couple of months out now from when we had concerns rise about I think there was one of the tricolor, the auto subprime auto lender. There were failures, there was concerns about non performing loans. What, what does your balance sheet look like as far as that and where is your worries lie?

[Jane Fraser]

You know I, our balance sheet is pristine but I think part of that is because it's, it's very heavily investment grade on the corporate side we're over 80% investment grade globally and when we look at the consumer side it's about 86% prime. So tend, you know we tend to see the most resilient, healthiest parts of the economy on the balance sheet. All of that said we haven't seen a thing that is concerning us. The consumer in the States is being fiscally responsible. Companies have been building up some more cash either for a rainy day if it proves necessary but most of them for investment and they're you know, they're acting from a position of strength. We'll keep an eye eye on the labor market, we'll keep an eye on some of the areas, mid tier players in private credit and the like. But as far as we're concerned that second third order effects the banks. The bank's not seeing anything that we're worried about.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

Are you concerned by what some say maybe bubble forming in AI? We talked about the advantages of AI, but how much of a bubble overheating?

[Jane Fraser]

I'm not sure if we were just in the in with a lot of our tech clients on the west coast. I don't think anyone was ready to say that it's a full on a high bubble, but no one is, no one is saying that there are some real pockets of, let's call it the British understatement, frothiness in the market. It's more around the edges. What I found interesting is we can see a lot of the demand for the infrastructure build that's going in AI and the energy for the next couple of years. You know, we're where you saw some opinions diverge was in the three to five year period could we be in danger of overbuilding? But no one's feeling that for the big investments that are going on at the moment for the next couple of years. So I think on that one some, certainly some pockets of frothiness there on the valuations but the, the core infrastructure investments are important and as we're seeing in our own bank and I think many companies are, will start getting some of the productiv benefits coming through. But the scale. Yeah, the scale and the pace of investment is unprecedented. That is for sure.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

Jane Fraser, thanks so much.

[Jane Fraser]

Thank you.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

Hope you don't mind me playing the devil's advocate. I have the story straight now. Good. Thanks so much very much for having us here.

[Jane Fraser]

Thank you.

[Bloomberg Interviewer]

China conference the 20th anniversary of that conference here in Shanghai.

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