Biggie Fries

Thanks for the responses ... Citi being Citi. I'll drag the balance down to $1,500 and let it sit like that (assuming no fees pop up) until Citi Prestige renewals start up in 2019.

RedSun

One important part of the relationship is discounted, or self-directed investment. Citi is behind both BofA/ML and Chase/JPM. This is the main reason that I do not bank with Citi. Also, Citi has been closing branches and Chase is building more branches. There is not a single branch that is close to me.

Right now Chase Sapphire banking is ahead of BofA/ML. Hope Chase can build up its investing....

garykung

This I don't agree.

1. Just because Citi does not offer discounted/self-directed investment, it does not mean Citi is behind both BofA/ML and Chase/JPM.

AFAIK - Historically, Citi has been positioning itself as "not your daily bank", but a higher tiered bank. So in the perspective of Citi, if my clients are in fact in a higher quality than most banks, I need not to offer discounted products.

Also, BofA/ML and Chase/JPM's offerings are apparently a response to mainstream discounted/self-directed brokerage like Charles Schwab, E*Trade and/or Fidelity, given these brokerages also offer banking products.

2. FWIW - with the advancement of the ATM machines nowadays, the use of a branch is further limited as many tasks can be done not in-person. I won't say Citi has the largest ATM network in the U.S. But I would say Chase's expansion is no more than expanding its ATM networks (as Chase has been promoting the use of an enhanced ATM machine in the lobby).

I would say Chase Sapphire banking is more a failure than a success.

Setting aside any potential opening bonus, Chase's own Premier Plus Checking customers get most of Chase Sapphire banking benefits. But Premier Plus only requires $15k but Sapphire requires $75k.

Also, before Sapphire was introduced, my expectation was it would be similar to Citi's Thank You, which is not at all.

Seriously - in comparison, Citi Priority looks more attractive than Sapphire.

akr1970akr

Citi does offer discounted self directed brokerage btw. They don't 'advertise' or push it much. But its available. You'll have to click around to find it, as its sort of hidden on the site.

At one point it was run out of Long Island City, but I think parts are now in San Antonio. It's not an awesome product, so I would only put 'things' in there that need very little maintenance.

This is not the place for anything needing voluntary corporate actions etc.

I use the CPWM SDBA to meet CitiGold status. I'm sure it must really stick in their product managers craw to have a non fee bearing balance meet that criteria.

But its also pretty ....ty that they don't count mortgage balances toward CG status.

In an awesome bit of circularity you can use the SDBA with enough balances to meet CG status, which then makes the SDBA annual fee free too.

But realistically none of their peers charge for keeping an account open to begin with so that was always a bit a of a BS fee.....

RedSun

Sure you can disagree. We can all do.

1. You say Citi positions itself as higher tiered bank? Totally wrong. Citi claims itself as truly "Global Bank" with banks overseas. BA and Chase do not have retail banking overseas (as far as I know). Citi is also heavy with credit card balance portfolio and earns tons of interest from poor folks. Do not tell Citi is higher tiered bank please. The days of high cost to trade stocks is gone. We have E*Trade, Schwabs, Robin Hood etc. It is so competitive to earn trade commissions. It is a losing game. Many discount brokers got sold or out of business. Both BA and Chase are ahead of Citi to make the changes. Citi has no clues.

2. ATM? I get access to many ATM from credit unions. But ATMs can't replace branches. We all know very few ATMs can take money order deposits. If I get MOs to deposit to Citi, where do I go? Going nowhere.

3. I truly enjoy the Sapphire Banking. I not only receive the 60,000 URs, but get almost all banking free. No global ATM fees (both sides), no inbound and outbound wiring fees; free customized checks. I do not know what banks offer that?

4. I do not care about the Premier Plus banking. My $$ has to sit somewhere. Instead of Vanguard, Fidelity and Schwab, I can trade all stocks and ETF w/o any fees and enjoy the perks and personal banker at local branch.

I know Citi has the discounted self-directed brokerage. But it still charges a fee to trade. Evan at $5/trade, it is a cost. What Citigold offers me?

Added: I just made 5 trades today in my Sapphire account. All free trades. I did consider Citigold, but I'd like to hear something that swings me to Citi. I know this is Citi forum, no flame...

RedSun

We all heard of "Citi Never Sleeps".


Citi brands itself of a global bank with branches all over the world. It is also urban heavy (where Citi gets the name), in large cities like NYC, London, Singapore, HongKong and Shanghai.

akr1970akr

I think you'd need to look very carefully at your fills/executions to determine if you really got a good deal with 'free' trades.

A zero commission on a sloppy fill that was directed to a high frequency trader infested dark pool is no value at all.

Once you have some tradeable assets one realizes that commissions are actually the smallest part of the return drag on an account.....

A lot of the value in a bank is going to come from the local network around where you live/work/travel, and your need for those services.

So what might be good for one person might not work for another.

sidenote: I've been shifting more core banking stuff over to US Bank. So far it has not been a disaster or anything. I will probably also do Chase Sapphire next year.

RedSun

This is the verbiage I got from Fidelity when I moved my $$ away. I trade multiple real-time platforms and I do not notice any difference of the trade quality. We are talking about JP Morgan Securities, not some shady brokers.

Commissions are not the smallest part of your return. Every $ counts. Why pay $5/trade if you can get it for free? I can easily pay $500/month commissions if I have investment account with Citi.

For a lot, or most of the people, wealth or investment is a far bigger part of people's wealth than bank deposits. Both BA and Chase realized this is the $$ they should chase, not just the bank fees or credit balance interest they go after. Citi still has not gotten it yet. Its investment division is "Wealth Management", not "Investment Management". It leaves the main-stream investments to investment brokers.

akr1970akr

If you are at the point where you could be spending $500/mo in comms, you should just skip these retail accounts and go open up an Interactive Brokers account.

I don't know what Citi's strategy is in the wealth/inv mgmt space.

I doubt any of these guys can effectively compete over the long haul with the pure play specialists.

But maybe they don't have to have a better product.

Maybe good enough will work for them.

Most clients are not going to be hyper about every last functionality of investing, fees, trading etc.

Some people will be motivated enough by a single log in, or a single branch offfice.

RedSun

I do have multiple IB accounts. But I do not want to keep all my $$ at IB. It is a trading platform, not investment.

With the evolving banking technology, I figure more and more people management their own money and do not pay an adviser fee to management their $$. Now we go back full circle to full bank service, banking, credit card, loans and investment, all under the same roof. And you get all the perks for parking your $$ at the bank.

This is the undoing of the Glass-Steagall. Now the large banks can offer all the services together.

alan19

I've had a citigold account for many years and up until earlier this year I was never charged an annual fee for my citi AA platinum select master card. Did something change with the citigold benefits recently?
Thanks,
-Alan

garykung

That was a grandfathered benefit. No longer available.

akr1970akr

Historically, CG account holders who had legacy cards opened when one $100 AF was waived annually were allowed to keep that fee waiver. We too have one AA Plat that gets the fee waiver (and one that doesn't. We also had a AA Gold that got a fee waiver at one point too, but it offered nothing vs the Plat, so I converted it to an ATTA. But as Citi has advised many times, the CG fee waiver is buggy in their system, so they said if we ever had an issue like a fee showing up on a card that was supposed to be waived that we could call in. We had to do that some years ago, but its been ok in recent times.

Sometime around the GFC Citi removed that as a stated CG benefit, but kept privately saying they would honor the deal for cards opened under the prior rules. At this point, my guess is that they have relatively few of those cards open, between the natural attrition of card membership AND the ever changing - and generally more stringent - CG qualifying rules. But if you think you should be getting the waiver, call in to the CG desk, and have them loop in card services, and request that CG stay on the line to help. We usually get much better Card service help when the process begins with CG desk.

I guess the fee waiver sounds nice, but in practice, Citi has tended to be good about retention offers, so the true benefit may not be as much. CG still gives $350 Prestige's though, which is a good deal, I think.

Surprisingly, I haven't had any real Citi card problems for 4-5 months. Normally something is always screwed up with them. Although now we have a mortgage servicing handover, which seems so far, to be going ok, but for a couple of weeks the site was all screwed up for looking at our information.

alan19

OK that makes sense, thanks. I think I just slipped through the cracks for years and they finally decided enough is enough.

TravelinSperry

I still haven't been charged the AF for my AA credit card... so it may not be a wholesale change. My AF shows as $0 on my statement and it was in Mar 19 that it showed that.