Citi's tech revamp focused on preventative controls after $81trn mistake
Citi's transformation isn't moving at a glacial pace, but it isn't moving rapidly either. In the bank's Q1 earnings presentation this week, the bank revealed that it retired 130 applications this quarter, less than half the amount it decommissioned in Q4 2024. CEO Jane Fraser, however, is happy with the progress.
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"Our focus is now ensuring we're delivering the risk reductions and the outcomes in a sustainable way," Fraser said in the bank's Q1 earnings call. Alongside the standard simplification and automation of processes, she said the bank's 13,000 strong transformation team has been putting "a lot more preventative and detective controls in place."
The focus on prevention was, no doubt, influenced by multiple mishaps earlier in the year. Due to a human error, the bank accidentally credited $81trn to an account instead of $270. Wealth boss Andy Sieg first heard about the error when venting to staff about an entirely separate error in which the bank almost mistakenly sent $6bn to a client.
Citi has since automated these processes, but they are far from the only two examples. The bank has allegedly had 23 'near misses' of $1bn or more in the past two years. More preventative measures will likely ensue.
It's not all about prevention; Citi is also adding more Gen AI tools into its ecosystem. The bank said this week that its document intelligence tool and virtual assistant have been used a collective 385k times. Its AI developer tool has completed ~220k automated code reviews. It's also using generative AI for those preventative measures; it's using the technology to detect unauthorized FX trading activity.
Citi isn't the only bank using AI. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said in the bank's own Q1 earnings call that its employees are using a "developer co-pilot coding assistant" and a "natural language GS AI assistant."
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