Citigroup Head of Currencies Prasad to Step Down in March By Ambereen Choudhury Feb 5, 2014 9:42 AM ET Save  Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg Signage is displayed inside a Citigroup Inc. Citibank branch in New York, on March 5, 2013. Citigroup Inc. (C), the third-largest U.S. bank, said foreign-exchange head Anil Prasad will leave the bank to “pursue other interests.” Prasad will remain until the end of March and a successor will be announced in coming weeks, Citigroup’s global head of markets and securities services, Francisco Ybarra, said in a memo to markets and securities employees. Citigroup officials in London confirmed the contents of the memo. The departure isn’t related to the wider investigation into the alleged manipulation of currency benchmarks, according to a person with knowledge of the situation, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. Regulators are probing whether traders at the world’s largest banks colluded through instant-message groups to manipulate benchmarks such as the WM/Reuters rates. Citigroup controls about 15 percent of the world’s currency trading, second only to Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank AG, according to a May survey by Euromoney Institutional Investor Plc. The New York-based lender is the top-ranked trader in spot and emerging-market currencies, according to the survey. Citigroup is among banks who have fired, suspended or put on leave at least 20 traders since Bloomberg News reported in June that employees at some firms shared information about their positions with counterparts at other banks. The firm last month fired Rohan Ramchandani, head of European spot trading. Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank dismissed three New York-based traders following an internal investigation into alleged manipulation, a person familiar with the matter said earlier today. Diego Moraiz, who dealt in Latin American currencies, Robert Wallden, who was questioned by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation last year about his electronic communications concerning foreign-exchange markets, and Christopher Fahy were fired for inappropriate communications, according to the person. Prasad, who is also head of local markets, joined Citigroup in Mumbai in 1986. He left in 1997 to join Natwest Capital Markets’s proprietary trading desk before returning to Citigroup in 2000. He didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment and didn’t pick up his office phone in London. Citigroup’s revenue from fixed income, currencies and commodities trading fell 7 percent to $13.1 billion last year, excluding some accounting charges, company filings show. To contact the reporter on this story: Ambereen Choudhury in London at achoudhury@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Heather Smith at hsmith26@bloomberg.net

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