Citi group to create over 200 jobs in expansion of Irish operations

US BANK Citi plans to create more than 200 jobs in an expansion that will increase the number of people it employs in the Republic to more than 2,400.

Citi will today announce it intends expanding its operations in Dublin and Waterford. The jobs will be created between both centres.

IDA Ireland, the State agency responsible for promoting the Republic as an investment location to multinationals, is supporting the expansion, and the bank will get grants for some of the jobs it plans to create.

Citi already employs 2,200 people between Dublin and the IDA’s business park in Waterford.

The new jobs will bring staff numbers in its Irish operations to between 2,400 and 2,500.

The jobs will be mainly for third-level graduates in an area known as global transactions, which involves processing payments for large companies and organisations that are doing business with each other in different locations around the world.

Global transactions are an important part of the overall Citi group’s business and the Republic is the European headquarters for its activities in this sphere.

A number of other Citi operations in Europe competed with the Republic to have the new jobs located there, but lost out.

The bank’s decision will be seen as a boost for the Republic’s competitiveness and as a vote of confidence in the State.

The news comes in the wake of one of the toughest budgets in the State’s history, which was published on Tuesday, and shortly after the EU and IMF agreed an €85 billion package with the Government to tackle the Republic’s national debt and bail out its banks.

Some observers feared that the EU–IMF deal would signal the end of the Republic’s 12.5 per cent tax rate for company profits, a key attraction for many multinational investors.

A number of other EU countries want the Republic to increase its corporate tax rate as they believe that the 12.5 per cent levy gives the State an unfair advantage. It is understood that the low tax rate was an issue for Citi when it came to making its decision on where to locate the new jobs.

However, the bank was said yesterday to have considered it more important that the Government remained committed to foreign direct investment and is able to set its own policies in this area.

Citi first established in the Republic 45 years ago, when it moved here to support some of the US companies that were beginning to establish bases in the State.

Since then, it has grown its operations to take in a range of services. Its global transactions business has been largely insulated from the impact of the turmoil that hit multi-national banking over the last two years, as it is focused on services rather than investment.

Citi recently reported that its income in the first nine months of 2010 was $9.3 billion, while it earned $2.2 billion during the final three months of that period.

The group has 200 million customer accounts and operations in 160 countries.