Citi Singapore chief pushes private banks to open accounts in a month

Citi's Singapore chief wants wealthy clients sitting in front of a private banker in a month, not six weeks or more. Lee Lung Nien, Citi's country officer and head of banking for Singapore, is co-chairing a push to cut account opening times to within one month by the end of 2026, down from the current six weeks or longer.

He knows exactly where the friction sits. Clients get hit with repeated document requests, including payslips from as far back as 30 years ago, and paperwork in foreign languages has to be translated, according to The Straits Times. The drag is real: opening an account can stretch from one month to nine, and some applications never get through at all. Lee's warning to laggards is blunt — if you don't look after your client, someone else will.

The Private Banking Industry Group, which he helps steer as co-chair of its account opening working group, was set up in mid-2025 and issued process enhancement tips in May 2026. The goal is to strip out bottlenecks and lean on tech without loosening anti-money laundering or risk controls. It is working: PBIG reported in October that almost half of new accounts opened at its member banks, Citi included, between June and August 2026 cleared within a month. The group works alongside the Monetary Authority of Singapore on industry conduct and competency standards.

Speed has a ceiling, Lee concedes. Asked about five-day openings, he framed it as a straight trade-off between risk and reward — anyone can do it, but at what standard, and how safely? Banks have to take risk-appropriate measures and stay open for business, he said, adding that about half of accounts opening within a month is a significant step forward and the numbers should improve as technology adoption grows.

Business at Citi Singapore is already running hot under his watch. Cross-border activity from Singapore-based clients, spanning investment financing, liquidity management and trade facilitation, climbed 18% between August 2025 and August 2026, while inflows into Singapore supported by the bank rose 22%, led by US, China and UK clients in financial institutions and the public sector. The bank has also shifted how it measures bankers, prioritising net new investable assets and return on tangible capital over deposits.

Next comes a hiring and retraining wave. Citi plans to upskill all its bankers, financial planners and underwriters and reskill 85% of banking operations staff into redesigned roles by 2028, including an Institute of Banking and Finance pilot that turns the assistant relationship manager job into a client-facing role. Globally it intends to add roughly 100 private bankers and 400 other specialists, with a big slice in Asia. Lee, who joined Citi as a credit analyst in 1990 and ran its Malaysia franchise from 2014 to 2020, says he judges candidates on IQ, EQ, adversity quotient and likeability quotient. His summary of the ideal hire: willing to roll up their sleeves, work in teams — and not a scholar.