Citi in the Philippines

Citizenship Focus

Citi Philippines' citizenship efforts focus on issues where it can naturally contribute its resources and expertise as a financial services company: Microfinance, which helps individuals become economically self-sufficient; Enterprise Development that leads to economic expansion and job creation; Youth Education and Livelihoods, which prepares young people for personal and professional success; and Financial Capability and Asset Building so individuals and families can make informed financial decisions.

Its workforce is steeped in volunteerism and dedicated to community service. Citi takes an active role in helping improve the quality of life in many local communities, extending its resources to create economically healthy communities for the benefit of all.

Microfinance

Citi empowers low-income individuals to build viable businesses and is committed to providing assistance - funding, on-the-ground partnerships, and employee engagement - to microenterprises that have no access to commercial banking due to limited resources or lack of credit history. Through its support of microfinance, Citi aims to increase the supply of financial products that improve and accelerate the financial inclusion of low income individuals.

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Citi Microentrepreneur of the Year Awards is one of the flagship citizenship programs of Citi, started in 2002, in partnership with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Microfinance Council of the Philippines. Supported by Citi Foundation, the program honors the best Filipino microentrepreneurs around the country, to help raise awareness of microfinance and its benefits in impoverished communities, create role models, and impact the economy as a whole.

2012 Citi Microentrepreneur of the Year Awardees and Highlights

2011 Citi Microentrepreneur of the Year Awardees and Highlights

2010 Citi Microentrepreneur of the Year Awardees and Highlights

Citi Microenterprise Development Center is a program launched in partnership with the Bayan Academy for Social Entrepreneurship and Human Resource Development. The center serves as a facility that trains hundreds of high potential microfinance clients each year by offering them a Grassroots Entrepreneurship Management Course as well as coaching and mentoring services in marketing, finance, operations and human resources. Winners of the Citi Microentrepreneur of the Year Awards program are also enrolled as scholars at the center.

Citi Microenterprise Development Center Highlights

MFI Management Training Accreditation Program was funded by the Citi Foundation and developed by the Asian Institute of Management in collaboration with Citibank Philippines' senior officers. These train-the-trainer modules on management development and quality and credit risk management have so far been offered to more than 100 trainers of various microfinance institutions across eight countries in Asia Pacific. These trainers, in turn, are expected to be able to train more than 5,000 internal staff and field officers, and filter down best practices to their own organizations.

Enterprise Development

Citi is also committed to helping small enterprises grow by providing access to technical assistance and investment capital, and helping them adopt better business models to achieve financial stability. Citi believes that these small businesses stimulate the country's economy and help create more jobs for our countrymen. It also supports enterprises that generate "triple bottom-line" economic, environmental, and social benefits.

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Gawad Kalinga's BayanAnihan aims to provide farmers based in Gawad Kalinga communities a sustainable source of livelihood. With Citi Foundation's contribution and the support of Citi Philippines, BayanAnihan shared the basics of commercial farming with 70 families in the GK Pueblo Antonio Village in Catigan, Davao City. A portion of the community’s harvest was then sold to a processing plant that used the inputs for ice cream. The program is now a sustainable source of livelihood for the community, which is using their acquired knowledge in commercial farming and entrepreneurship for planting other crops for commercial sale. Due to the success of the program, a similar program will be rolled out in the Ave. Maria GK Village in Tanay, Rizal.

Gawad Kalinga BayanAnihan Highlights

Citi-Hapinoy Incubator is a value-chain enterprise program launched in partnership with the Center for Agricultural and Rural Business Development Services Foundation and Microventures Foundation Inc. The latter is the group behind “Hapinoy,” a social enterprise model that is based around developing a chain of sari-sari stores or small rural village shops. The Citi-Hapinoy Incubator develops early-stage microentrepreneurs who are looking to improve their product in terms of development, process, quality and packaging. The microentrepreneurs receive a 35 week training that focuses on creating competitive products that will eventually be linked to supplier networks and the chain of Hapinoy sari-sari stores.

Youth Education and Livelihoods

Expanding educational opportunities and helping improve academic achievements of the youth can help drive economic growth as well. Citi supports these programs that help the youth develop the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviors that can increase their chances of obtaining a college degree and eventually, better job opportunities.

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Buildings for Literacy, Understanding, and Education (BLUE) is a school building program, which started with two-classroom school buildings for 11 elementary schools in Laguna. Slowly, the program added more buildings to schools in Paranaque, Malabon, Southern Leyte, and Cavite. The biggest BLUE school building is in Tipas Elementary School in Taguig. To date, Citi Philippines has been able to provide 40 brand-new classrooms to 16 public schools in Metro Manila, Southern Leyte, and Laguna.
Citi Junior Bankers is a partnership with the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX) Foundation which targets low-income college students from state schools and public universities. The program focuses on exposing young people to careers in banking and finance with the goal of equipping them with the proper skills for their transition from university to employment. The congress also offers its participants the opportunity to receive mentoring and on-the-job training with FINEX members.
Knowledge Channel Foundation has been Citi’s partner since 2001, when 16 public schools in Metro Manila and Cebu were granted access to curriculum-based educational TV programming. Citi later collaborated with the Knowledge Channel to develop educational modules for TV: the Citi Learning Series from Estudyantipid 1, Estudyantipid 2, and Agham Aralin.

In 2009, Asian CSR gave Citi Philippines an Excellence Award for Support and Improvement of Education in recognition of the Estudyantipid program. In 2011, Citi Philippines and Knowledge Channel worked together to produce Estudyantipid 3, a learning series on entrepreneurship that targets high school students, out of school youth, and enrollees in the Department of Education’s Alternative Learning System program.

Pres. Cory Aquino School Desk Project is an initiative of former President Corazon Aquino which started in 2003. The late President saw the perennial problem of insufficient school facilities and wished to make a contribution by ensuring that schools around the country will have new and more school desks to accommodate the growing number of students. Citi was one of the first that pledged support for the project, and inked a multi-year commitment to reach out to as many schools all over the country. Through the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP), Citi has donated a total of 8,691 chairs to 35 schools, including those in disadvantaged communities in Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Sulu, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi, and Sarangani.
Sa Aklat Sisikat (SAS) brought a unique and innovative reading program starting from three schools in Bulacan to nine public schools in San Juan, Metro Manila, and 23 public schools in Pasig City in its partnership with Citi Philippines. More than 20,000 elementary students and teachers benefited from SAS reading activities as well as supplementary materials like books, reading passports, and progress charts. An extra hour devoted to the program not only encouraged a love for reading among the students, but also expanded their vocabulary, improved writing and communication skills, and enhanced creativity and artistic talents.

Financial Capability and Asset Building

As part of a nationwide campaign to help individuals secure their financial future and adopt positive financial behavior, Citi has supported the following programs:

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“You Can Bank On It!” is a financial literacy campaign partnership between Citi Philippines, the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. Benefitting underprivileged public school children in 40 public schools across the Philippines, the campaign was a six-part money management learning series for young readers. Forty teachers from public schools, non-profit schools, and private schools signed up to participate in the teachers’ training program, which ran from July 4 to August 19 2011. In this program, each teacher received a copy of the PDI every Monday and delivered a financial literacy module to their students during the week. Each weekly session culminated with a lecture and discussion session on the topics. The materials for the campaign were introduced to the participants through the Learning section of PDI. The module was used by Math and Economics teachers to impart the basics of personal finance management to high school students.
In 2012, the series received the top prize in the Newspapers in Education category from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers at the annual Young Reader Prize competition.
Money Matters for Kids is an interactive exhibit produced by Museo Pambata in coordination with Citi. Launched in 2011, this exhibit for kids highlighted concepts on saving, earning, spending, and sharing money wisely. Also included were guided tours through sections that teach valuable concepts in adopting positive financial behavior.
The Citi Let's Talk Money Series was launched in 2005 in partnership with ABS-CBN Bayan Foundation and ABS-CBN Publishing to give low-income women entrepreneurs access to values formation seminars and training on the basics of entrepreneurship. In the same year, Citi also helped develop workshop materials, and published the Making More Money booklet.

Take Charge of Your Money is a partnership with INQUIRER.net which featured a weekly section on personal finance management in the online version of the Inquirer. The series covered a wide range of topics from planning and budgeting to spending and investing, and emphasized the importance of mapping out your financial goals and finding a way to achieve them. The most popular articles from the editorial series are now accessible from the Personal Finance tab of Citibank Online.

Click here to view articles from Take Charge of Your Money

Use Credit Wisely was launched in 2004 to promote financial literacy especially among first-time credit card holders. Initially, information was made available on demand via a website, before the book and flyer versions were released. The program is the longest running credit education campaign in the country.

Click here to visit the Use Credit Wisely website

Global Community Day

Every year, Citi Philippines, together with Citi employees all over the world, celebrate Global Community Day with various activities such as farm builds, marathon runs, and home and school rebuilding programs. Apart from this annual tradition, throughout the year, employee volunteers gather on weekends to reach out to those in need, by way of reading clinics, feeding programs, and community building efforts, among others.

2012 Global Community Day

2011 Global Community Day

2010 Global Community Day

Click here to know more about the Citi Foundation

Citi Philippines Marks 2010 Global Community Day

Over 2,400 Citi volunteers, together with friends and family, come together to run, read, and rebuild for a cause.

Three straight weekends. An impending typhoon. Fourteen exciting activities. More than 2,400 Citi employees.

Nothing could stop Citi Philippines from celebrating the 5th Citi Global Community Day this year. Family members and friends came with Citi employees to do their share for the environment, repaint homes and schools, bring cheer to underprivileged children, and help conduct feeding programs.

Starting with its participation in A Run for Pasig River marathon on October 10, Citi Philippines went on to facilitate a reading program with Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation (SAS) at a Makati City public school and repainting of schools in support of the nationwide Brigada Eskwela on October 16, before repainting homes and helping build a farm in Tanay, Rizal with Gawad Kalinga, on October 23.

Run, Read, and Rebuild

Led by Country Head and Citi Country Officer for the Philippines Sanjiv Vohra, over 300 Citi volunteers sporting "Powered by Citi" singlets joined the run together with hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to Save the Pasig River last October 10. The run helped raise funds for the clean-up of one of Manila's most polluted rivers.

Meantime, despite the threat of a super typhoon last October 16, F. Benitez Elementary School in Makati City was filled with more than 400 Citi volunteers who spent time reading with at least 400 students. Organized in partnership with SAS, one of the long-term community partners of Citi Philippines, the activity was designed to promote the love of reading in Filipino children.

On the same weekend, at Upper Bicutan Elementary School in Taguig City, 50 Citi volunteers armed themselves with buckets of paints, brushes, paint rollers and enthusiasm and gave new life to nine classrooms.

And on October 23, the red-letter day for Citi volunteers around the world, Citibank Philippines volunteers plus their friends and families repainted homes at the Gawad Kalinga Ave Maria Village in Tanay, Rizal. For this BayanAnihan farming community program, bamboo fences were erected, a compost shed was constructed, soil was tilled, and flowers and vegetables were planted - all at a record time of 1 hour and 13 minutes! Citi bested close to a dozen corporations who have attempted to build a similar farm in an average of 3.5 hours.

But Citi's community building efforts do not end here. More volunteers participated in activities involving communities in Batangas, Cebu, Dagupan, Manila, and Pampanga in November.

A Strong Commitment, Valuable Partnerships

"Many Citi employees volunteer year-round and Global Community Day has become a strong tradition in the bank to celebrate what we do to make a difference in our communities every day," related Vohra.

On Global Community Day, Citi employees, along with families and friends, come together as a global volunteer team working in North America, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. "We're engaging in a variety of projects addressing specific community needs including literacy, housing, environmental protection, nutrition, and health care," added Vohra.

"It's our 5th run and I continue to be amazed by the fact that all over the globe, in more than 75 countries, in more than 460 cities, there are more than 45,000 Citi volunteers who are helping our communities, making things better, giving our time, and giving of ourselves," explained Vohra.

Citi's valuable contribution does not go unnoticed. According to Mike Dimagiba, Executive Director of Gawad Kalinga BayanAnihan: "We're glad that we found the perfect partnership with Citi, as they help us empower communities to eradicate hunger."

Dimagiba credits Citi's effective teamwork in successfully gathering its employees from different departments to participate in community building activities, and accomplish these challenging tasks.

In the same way, Sa Aklat Sisikat Foundation underscores the importance of partners like Citi who support its dream of building a nation of readers. According to Lizzie E. Zobel, SAS Vice-President and Treasurer, and Christine Araneta-Ferreira, SAS Executive Director, "The smiling faces of the children and the laughter confirm the positive effect of Citibank's Global Community Day."

"On this annual occasion where we all come together for the less fortunate, I am humbled to see bankers become teachers, farmers, painters - all in an effort to make a difference," concluded Vohra.

Global Community Day Highlights