Now in its 12th year, Citi’s annual‘e for education’ campaign is the bank’s largest continuous charity campaign, having raised over $80 million and benefiting 2 million underprivileged children and 16,000 schools. This year, the initiative featured a dedicated CitiFX Algo Day for the first time, where algo volumes traded were 3x higher than the monthly average1. The day enabled Citi to highlight the functionality and capabilities of their algo suite, while providing algo clients with a focused opportunity to be a part of the fundraising activities for the range of worthy causes supported by the bank.
As one of the world’s largest banks in terms of footprint, it was a natural evolution for Citi to start partnering with non-profits that operate in the countries that it has a local presence in, says Darren Brighton, Global Head of Digital FX Sales at Citi. He explains that the original concept of the e for education initiative was driven by the FX team initially and born out of the desire to support global non-profits with a focus on supporting the education of underprivileged children and young people. Education is the great equalizer. Education equity and access to quality education leads to economic growth and supports social progress and we believe in the power of education to help young people unleash their talent. “This was an area that both employees and management alike felt very passionate about,” Brighton adds. “Our team members give up their free time and put huge effort into running the campaign. We wanted a campaign that would help lift the profile of the non-profits and one which would allow our clients to directly engage and show their support. By focusing our fundraising efforts on the electronic channels where clients have control, we believe this provides the most direct mechanism for clients to participate.”
Now an annual campaign, e for education supports 13 non-profits globally, all with a focus on improving basic literacy, life skills or access to higher education for children and young people, Brighton explains. In addition, the campaign has expanded from initially being an FX initiative to now running across our Markets businesses. “This year we raised in excess of $6.4 million dollars, bringing the total raised across all our campaigns to over $80 million in aggregate since 2013,” Brighton adds.
This year, Citi hosted its first ever Algo Day, where Citi donated the algo fee in addition to $5 for every million traded to e4e non-profits. The day provided Citi’s FX sales and trading teams with an opportunity to discuss the work of the e4e campaign with clients, whilst also enabling them to showcase the performance of the recent enhancements to their next generation suite of dynamic algo’s. “For example, Tradefeedr’s pre-trade tool has shown that Citi’s flagship arrival strategy outperforms the street average significantly, while clients can view peer analysis from Best-X, which are both tools for helping them making decisions around their algo execution allocations,” says James McGuigan, FX Algo Product Manager at Citi.
During our Algo Day, “the entire team were busy interacting with clients on client chatrooms assisting them with their in-flight algo executions, while also keeping them updated on how much they have helped contribute so far” says Reeya Sakaria, Director, Digital FX Sales at Citi. James adds: “we also had general conversations around our most recent product developments during the campaign and were able to share key metrics of particular interest to our clients, such as our internalisation rates.
The team has had many productive discussions around what our liquidity seeking capabilities are like now vs in terms of venues that we can access and new features that we are deploying. The day provided the team with the opportunity to have informative discussions with our clients framed around this worthy cause – and in turn we found clients were happy to engage in discussions around the new suite and toolsets.”
Another way in which Citi engages with their clients throughout the e for education campaign is through events hosted in partnership with the non-profit organisations. E for education’s 13 non-profit organisations mirror Citi’s global presence across 72 geographies, says Sakaria. “Our engagement with these non-profit organisations is integral to the e for education campaign itself, allowing Citi to positively engage with the communities in which we have a local business presence,” she adds.
Citi has also hosted around 30 events this year alone, across multiple jurisdictions, ranging from visiting local schools to inviting students to Citi offices to give them an insight into sales and trading through speaker sessions, networking events and trading day simulations.
An example of this would be an event Citi hosted in South Africa in partnership with EMpower and Teach the Nation, non-profits that aim to empower children from under resourced schools to become future leaders in their communities. “Many of the students who take part in these events have never had any exposure to the financial services or to the career opportunities available in our industry,” Sakaria says.
“One of the reasons why we are so passionate about e for education is because it enables students to access a network of people that they would not typically have any exposure to. If students can relate to someone – perhaps because they see someone that looks like them or has had a similar background – then opportunities can feel more tangible and within their reach. We have seen that this can really inspire them and open their eyes to what is possible, for them to think yes, I could be like that person and have that career.”
Another event to highlight this year was in partnership with the global youth charity Ditch the Label, which focuses on helping young people overcome issues such as mental health or identity, Sakaria explains. This saw Citi clients invited to join to increase awareness and educate the parents of children who might be struggling with these issues, all with the support and expertise of the non-profit.
“Across the entire campaign clients have been very engaged, firstly by learning that their flow is being executed with a market leading FX and algo provider, and secondly, in knowing that this flow is making a real and positive difference on the lives of young people across the world” says Sakaria. She adds “e for education helps Citi gain share of mind with our clients, whilst also being powerful and rewarding experience for them and the employees alike.”
Note: 1monthly average algo volumes calculated using Sept and Oct 2024 ADV
