It joins a growing list of banks temporarily shuttering branches as the novel coronavirus continues to spread across the country and more Americans stay home. Meanwhile, Citi and rival Wells Fargo became the latest banks to announce plans to pay bonuses to front-line employees.

Citi is beefing up leadership in its consumer card lending operations by recruiting Chase exec Pam Habner — credited with engineering the success of Chase’s Sapphire Reserve card — and former Citi exec Chris Fred, who will return after several months of working at Goldman Sachs on Apple Card products.

JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup told employees if they can work from home to begin doing so this week, escalating efforts to prevent the deadly coronavirus from spreading among staff.

The banks — including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup — agreed to stop buying back their own shares through the second quarter, saying they will focus on supporting clients and the nation during the coronavirus pandemic.

The biggest U.S. banks are once again preparing to show how they'll be able to withstand a severe economic shock in a hypothetical doomsday scenario, and they're eager to get on with it as a real one unfolds.

HSBC sounded out former Citigroup banker James Forese to gauge his interest in the chief executive officer's post, at least the third high-profile outside financier to be approached.

Investment bankers have are trying to drum up interest from investment firms and hedge funds to provide tens of billions of dollars in financing to companies in industries upended by the coronavirus.

An investment firm that has been pressuring large companies to enhance disclosures said that its efforts at JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Bank of New York Mellon are gaining ground.

Citigroup and Morgan Stanley told employees not to travel internationally for nonessential business, expanding earlier restrictions in Wall Street's latest responses to the spread of the coronavirus.

The bank added Italy to the list of countries off-limits to employees after restricting travel to and from Asia for the last several weeks.