Citigroup (C.N) is considering seeking a full banking license in Saudi Arabia, the president and chief executive of the bank’s institutional clients group said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.
“We’re looking at whether or not we should expand our activities here into a full banking license,” James Forese said at a business conference in Riyadh.
The U.S. bank won formal approval in January from the kingdom’s Capital Market Authority regulator to begin investment banking business.
More than a dozen foreign banks have licenses to operate branches in Saudi Arabia, battling for business resulting from ambitious reforms to wean the economy of the world’s top oil exporter off crude oil.
Citigroup left Saudi Arabia in 2004 after operating for five decades when it sold its 20 percent stake in Samba Financial Group.
But in 2015 it won permission from the regulator to invest directly in the local stock market, marking the first step in its return.
The bank is vying for a role on Saudi Aramco’s planned initial public offering, a move that could float up to 5 percent of the state oil giant and make it the world’s biggest oil company by market capitalization.
Citi was one of the banks that helped arrange Saudi Arabia’s $11 billion U.S. dollar bond issue last month.
