Citibank expands Jordan office to offer full securities services.

Citicorp's lead bank, Citibank, has started to offer full securities processing and custodial services at its branch in Jordan's capital, Amman.

Andrew Douglas, a senior account manager for global custody in London, said a number of clients had requested the service. He sees it as an opportunity to meet those needs as well as to increase business.

"The demand for these types of services was so high that we either had to go out and open a full-blown custody operation or we would have had to farm it out," he said. "With the bricks and mortar in place at the existing branch, it made sense for us to capitalize on our resources."

Previously, Citibank had offered custodial services to a few selected clients, but did not push to offer such services to others.

It is the only American-owned bank in Jordan, which requires aproval from the Prime Ministry before a foreign-owned business can open.

Mr. Douglas said the bank expects the bulk of its custodial business to come from institutional investors looking to get into Jordan's emerging market.

As of yearend 1993, capitalization of the Jordanian equities market stood at $5.3 billion.

Now, the Amman office will provide a full range of custody and global securities clearing services, including: settlement, safekeeping, dividend collection, corporate action notification, cash management, foreign exchange, record keeping, and

Using Proprietary System

A Citibank spokeswoman in London said the bank has installed a proprietary system to process the securities.

The branch has the ability to offer subcustodian services for other banks through a service known as direct custody.

The bank offers cross-border custody and clearing services to clients around the globe.

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