Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Jane Fraser: Yes. I mean we have a fabulous cards franchise. And when we look at strong track record in the digital, the other innovations that are driving growth, driving the profitability, driving the returns both in our proprietary products as well as our partners, and we are really seeing all of those drivers performing very, very strongly at the moment. From custom cash, it was 28% of new accounts acquisition. So, an important new product refresh that’s driving things 80% of customers engaging digitally. Innovations like America is just a fantastic partner of us, really taking that to the next level. And you can see that with the growth in spend in the category. So, I think there is a lot of reasons to be pretty excited about the growth in the return and the margins and the other trajectories here, and as I say, a prime portfolio, which is always a good thing.

Ken Usdin: Great. Thanks. And my second question was, there was an article about changing management up in the wealth management business this week. And I just wonder if you can talk about that, but also just about the progress that you are making inside the wealth management relative to your €“ the KPIs and the goals that you have discussed at Analyst Day. Thanks.

Jane Fraser: Well, sure. I mean 2 years ago, I asked MacDonald to put the wealth business together from the various components that we had around the firm. And now as we move to the next phase, but as we have said, strategically important business. I thought it was the right time to change the leadership also because Jim is going to play an important role moving forward, supporting Paco with the ICG strategy that we laid out at Investor Day. He has got a lot of relationships with investors, family offices, private equity, sovereign wealth funds. And he is going to be helping drive those along with other investors to make sure we bring the firm’s full capabilities to these clients. So, I felt the time was right to make the move.

And we will be, as indicated, strictly moving to go out and have a look for our next leader of that business. And in the meantime, business as usual as we grow and follow the strategy that we have, and we are looking forward to the market turning, as I am sure everyone is and feel that we are well positioned to do so.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question will come from Steven Chubak with Wolfe Research. Your line is now open.

Sheng Wang: Hi. Good afternoon. This is actually Sheng Wang filling in for Steven. Just on the topic of credit, one of your peers noted this morning that they would expect to see an incremental $6 billion or so of reserves if they assume 6% unemployment under CECL. Can you €“ just wondering if you could provide some similar sensitivity to reserve levels and how should we think about the provision trajectory versus the 4Q base based on your macro outlook and potential growth math headwinds?

Mark Mason: Yes. Thank you. I will go ahead and I will take that. I am not going to kind of do sensitivity scenarios with you here on the fly. What I will say is that as we build these reserves, we are building them against three scenarios. That base scenario that I mentioned, the downside scenario and upside scenario, and we weight those scenarios. And the base that we used this quarter built in a mild recession. And in that baseline, unemployment was, call it, 4.4% or so in terms of the unemployment assumption. We also had a downside scenario. Unemployment in the downside scenario got to a 6.9% or so. And then we had an upside scenario. The weighted average across the quarters was about the 5.1% that I mentioned. And those were factors that went into the reserve that we established in the in the quarter.

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