KUALA LUMPUR: In a world where technology drives businesses, employee remains as one of the most important intangible assets that any organisation could have.
At Citigroup Transaction Services (M) Sdn Bhd (CTSM), employees are the heartbeat of the company as it expanded Citi Service Centres (CSCs) in Malaysia.
A wholly-owned subsidiary of Citigroup, the company continues to look for local new talent by offering various opportunities to qualified candidates who are interested to join.
CTSM manages the day-to-day financial process transaction relating to Citibank’s customers, which range from large multinational companies, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to retail customers, at the CSCs.
Its centre processes high number of transactions worth more than billions of ringgit on average daily from over 50 countries.
CTSM’s new managing director and head Venkat Iyer said the company’s workforce is 3,200 at three of its centres in Malaysia. Of the 3,200, more than 1,000 are in Penang, almost 1,400 in Kuala Lumpur and over 600 in Johor Baru.
CTSM’s first CSC in Malaysia was opened in Penang in 1993. The centre was established as the regional trade-processing centre for Asia and it remains the largest trade-processing centre globally.
Venkat, who has been with Citi for more than 25 years and is also Asia regional lead, said the company’s aim is to grow its three sites in Malaysia rather than adding more service centres.
“For these centres to be efficient, there has to be a certain scale as the centres are not like a bank branch. Most transactions are processed in the CSCs, so the focus is to have bigger centres in order to have large economies of scale, which will then allow us to have more qualified people, common processes and systems, and better controls over the processes,” Venkat said in an interview last week.
In the region, Malaysia is one of the countries that houses CSCs apart from Singapore, India, the Philippines and China.
The CSCs in Malaysia have grown steadily over the last several years with CTSM hiring some 400 to 450 people in order to achieve its net growth target of 200 to 250 new employees on average annually.
Venkat said more than 90 per cent of CTSM employees are Malaysians.
The three sites manage different types of products. The Penang service centre, for example, is a centre for trade and cash transactions, while the centre in Johor Baru supports mainly retail customers for bank account and credit cards.
Meanwhile, the CSC in Kuala Lumpur is a multi-product site that manages securities and fund services for large institutions. The service centre is also the regional anti-money laundering operations hub for Citi.
As Citi grows, it needs to have the capacity to process the rise in transactions.
“To process these transactions, we need to build capacity that will enable us to ensure that processes are done in a very controlled manner and on a timely basis (i.e. quick turnaround and ability to process transactions 24/7)...
“Our CSCs are large centres so we can invest in the right quality of people, common processes and new technologies,” Venkat said, who has been helming CTSM since June 2014.