- Key insight: Citi will make $5 billion of incremental investments between now and 2028, some of which will go toward retail branch renovations. It also announced higher profitability targets.
- What's at stake: Citi's multiyear strategic overhaul has been focused on sustainable growth and higher, more consistent shareholder returns. The path laid out Thursday is the way to get there, CEO Jane Fraser said.
- Supporting data: The bank aims to achieve a return on tangible common equity of 11% to 13% in 2027 and 2028. That would be an improvement from 2025, when the metric was 7.7%.
UPDATE: This article has been updated with information and comments delivered during Citi's investor day.
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Citi plans to renovate its existing retail branches and hire hundreds of client advisors, personal bankers and small-business advisors, as it aims to boost the performance of its U.S. retail bank.
The third-largest U.S. bank by assets, whose U.S. retail branch network is far smaller than its big bank peers, will also invest further in technology and artificial intelligence capabilities to help deliver a better digital platform experience for its retail customers, executives said Thursday in New York at the bank's first investor day in four years.
Firmwide, Citi will make $5 billion of incremental investments between now and 2028, much of which will come from expense savings in different parts of the bank. A major factor will be lower costs tied to Citi's half-decade-long risk management overhaul, which is nearing completion.
"What we've outlined today is a testament to a Citi that is fundamentally transformed," Chief Financial Officer Gonzalo Luchetti said at the event. "This is a new era for Citi."
Throughout the morning, Citi offered a comprehensive look at CEO Jane Fraser's vision for the $2.8 trillion-asset bank that she's led since 2021. The focus remains largely unchanged: to generate sustainable profitability across business lines and drive higher shareholder returns.
The bank, which has been in revamp mode since Fraser took the helm, laid out new, higher profitability targets Thursday and announced a multiyear plan to buy back $30 billion of common shares. It expects to achieve a return on tangible common equity of 11% to 13% in 2027 and 2028, which exceeds the 10% to 11% return that Citi said it's on track to achieve by the end of this year.
Citi announced an even higher target for the end of the decade and beyond. Between 2029 and 2031, it expects its return on tangible common equity to fall between 14% and 15%.
Citi's return on tangible common equity has been closely watched over the years. Meant to shine a light on a bank's overall performance, Citi's return has lagged other large banks, though in the first quarter of this year, it was 13.1%. For all of 2025, it was 7.7%.
Citi's retail bank, which is now part of its wealth business, is part of the growth opportunity, Andy Sieg, head of wealth, told investors. The bank plans to modernize its 650 branches and hire 400-plus client advisors and private bankers to expand "advisory-first coverage," Sieg said.
In addition, Citi plans to ramp up its small-business services, Sieg said. It plans to hire more than 200 small-business advisors and refresh some of its small-business product offerings.
Citi's wealth business has the biggest lift in terms of achieving higher profitability. It's improved its return on tangible common equity from negative 2% for 2023 to 8% in 2025. The stated goal is 15% to 20% in the next two years, and above 20% between 2029 and 2031, the bank said.
Fraser kicked off Citi's investor day with a 30-minute overview of what the bank has achieved in recent years, and where it is heading. Since 2021, it has been simplified through the sale or wind-downs of consumer franchises in underperforming markets. Management layers have been compressed and five core businesses have been defined, all while the bank undertook a massive initiative to improve risk management and internal controls after years of blunders.
"From the start, this was about more than just fixing the old Citi," Fraser said in her opening remarks. "It was about building the bank the next decade demands."
She compared the process of transforming Citi to rebuilding an engine.
"The question now isn't whether the engine works," Fraser said. "It's what it can do from here."
Investors' response to Citi's go-forward plan was rather muted. Its stock price, which crossed the $100 per share threshold last fall, was up about a little over 1% by late afternoon Thursday.
Gerard Cassidy, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, wrote Thursday in a research note that he was "underwhelmed" by the bank's near-term return on tangible common equity target.
The path to roughly 14% to 15% "was not as rapid as we were hoping, but directionally it is moving in the right direction," Cassidy said. Still, the repurchase plan was "a clear positive," he added.
