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Citi Bank Korea Union protest the bank management’s plan for massive closure of branches leaving the consumers and employees behind.

Citi Bank Korea union, an affiliate of KFIU (Korea Finance Industry Union), is currently struggling to protest the management’s recent decision to close 101 branch offices out of 126 nationwide. CBK. union have 2,600 union members out of total 3,500 employees. If the drastic branch closures go ahead, the jobs of 800 employees in the 101 branch offices will be impacted.

Citi Bank Korea Inc already closed 56 branches in 2014 and 650 employees had to leave the Bank. Bro. Song Byung-Joon, Citi Bank Korea Union, already had a meeting with Stephen Bird, CEO of Global Consumer Banking in which he argued that the massive redundancies and closure of branches in 2014 had no positive outcome for the bank performance. On the contrary, Citi Bank Korea Inc was the only commercial bank which showed decline of the net income in 2016, while all commercial banks showed 32.5% of increase of net income. This is evidence that the top management has no real understanding of the local business and made a business failure by just cutting the labor cost.

If the branch offices close in the major provincial cities, it will result in a chaotic situation for both consumers and employees. It is quite the opposite direction needed to ensure the basic role of ensuring quality banking services to the public.  Employees in the provincial cities will have to move to the remote areas and then most of them will suffer the relocation and new jobs etc, in particular women workers with children in school will face the difficulties of mobility. According to the union, most of branches in the provincial cities still earn profits, not a deficit.  Another  concern is that the high rate of dividend payment of 50% of net income for 2016 will not be healthy for the local business because it will be outflow of wealth from Korea to overseas. However the data base investment in Korea to protect the consumer information has not been done enough despite of the order of FSC (Finance Supervisory Commission) and failed to prevent the number of illegal transactions of credit cards in Thailand recently.

Citi Bank Korea Union has released the statement that this new branch closure management plan for reducing the off-line and maximizing the on-line and wealth management will not be successful without the union's consent.  If the bank management proceeds with the branch closures unilaterally, the union will fight for employment security and wage and working conditions for employees throughout the following three years.

For more information please contact Jay Choi at the UNI-APRO Korea Desk: jay.choi@uniglobalunion.org