By Selena Li
BEIJING/HONG KONG, Oct 23 (Reuters) - China's securities regulator said on Friday it has approved a plan by Citi to establish a fully owned securities unit in the country, allowing the Wall Street bank to expand its presence in the world's second-largest economy.
Headquartered in Shanghai, Citigroup Securities China Company is permitted to offer onshore capital markets services to domestic and foreign clients, including underwriting, equities brokerage, trading onshore securities, securities research
and investment advisory.
The US bank, which offers corporate, institutional and other banking services in China, applied for a wholly owned mainland Chinese brokerage unit licence in late 2021 as part of its push to ramp up its China onshore operations.
The approval comes as China has vowed to continue to open up its domestic financial markets to international companies, even as heightened geopolitical frictions, tightening regulatory scrutiny and a shifting macroeconomic landscape prompt many foreign financial institutions to carefully weigh the risks and rewards of their onshore expansions.
Citi has been hiring for the business over the last couple of years and aims to roughly double the headcount to around 100 people by the end of this year, a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters in September.
China is seeing a growing list of technology and other companies tapping its domestic equity markets for fundraising and is attracting increased fund flows into the stock markets.
"By adding onshore capabilities to our global platform, we will be able to do more for clients in China's domestic capital markets, including helping them raise capital, access investors and trade locally, while connecting them to opportunities around the world," Citi group CEO Jane Fraser said in a statement.
In 2025, profits at the wholly-owned China securities unit of Citi's competitor Goldman Sachs nearly tripled to 1.46 billion yuan ($217.39 million), while another rival JPMorgan's almost quadrupled to 984 million yuan, according to their China annual reports.
(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Susan Fenton)
