By Fiona Chan

Singapore has been chosen to host one of four centres around the world that will support Citibank's new premier global banking service.

The bank yesterday launched Citigold Global Banking, which offers personal banking and wealth management services to affluent customers on the move.

The new service offers special travel-friendly features for expatriates, such as allowing them to transport their credit between countries and to open an account in another country before arriving there, subject to that country's regulations.

Customers also benefit from worldwide Citigold status and global access to emergency services and support centres, Citi said in a statement.

To bolster this effort, Citi has opened a dedicated global support centre in Singapore to serve the Asia-Pacific region.

It has set up three more: in Barcelona, to serve Europe and the Middle East; Mexico, to serve South and Latin America; and the United States, to serve North America and Canada.

The bank said it chose Singapore for its support centre partly because of its 'multilingual talent'.

It also cited figures from the World Bank and United Nations that showed that more than 190 million people live outside their home country and more than 90 million work abroad.

In the Asia-Pacific region alone, every five years, almost three million people move from their country of birth to live in another country, Citi said.

The bank plans to target the affluent customers within this large segment. In Singapore, these would be customers with more than $200,000 in investable assets.

'Our affluent customers today lead busy lives and they expect transactions, particularly cross-border financial transactions, to be faster, safer and more convenient than ever before,' said Mr Anil Wadhwani, Citibank Singapore's retail banking head.

He added that the new service will address common problems that expatriates face when relocating to a new country.

'When people move from country to country, they may often get frustrated when they lose their 'home' banking relationship, their credit history, and easy access to accounts from anywhere in the world.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on 9 July 2008.