Citi Self Invest Rating: 
Overview of Citi Self Invest
If you thought Citi was only for banking, you should think again. Through its subsidiary Citi Self Invest, the company offers trading and investing services of various kinds. There are some limitations, though. Our research reveals the details.
Investing Program
Citigroup has a budget, online investing firm that offers both self-directed and robo accounts. The latter setup, called Citi Wealth Builder, trades a small selection of ETFs with low expense ratios. The former, called Citi Self Invest, offers a larger list of exchange-traded funds plus stocks and mutual funds. At this time, there are no other asset classes, like cryptocurrencies, bonds, futures, or options.
Investing accounts of either type, robo or brokerage, are protected by America’s securities insurer SIPC. There is a maximum insurance level of $500,000 per account category (not per account). Speaking of account categories, there is only one at Citi Self Invest and Wealth Builder right now: the individual taxable account. The investment firm has plans for a future rollout of IRAs and joint accounts.
Citi requires either an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) or a Social Security Number (SSN) to open a robo or self-managed account.
Cash Management
An account with Citi Self Invest or Wealth Builder isn’t eligible for any of Citi’s world-famous banking services. There is no debit card for investing customers, for example. However, it is possible to link an investing account to a checking or savings account. In fact, this is done automatically for accounts that have the same tax ID number. Credit cards with Citi are also connected in this way.
Balances held in robo and brokerage accounts qualify towards minimum account levels in other Citi programs, including some of the banking products. The account level in a securities account can waive monthly fees on checking and savings accounts, for example.
Fees and Minimums
For its investing accounts, Citi requires very little. There are no commissions in either brokerage or managed accounts. The self-directed side of the business requires no minimum deposit to open an account, and there are no recurring fees of any kind.
Automated accounts are a different story. Because they are managed accounts, there is a management fee. It is 0.25% per annum. There is also an account minimum of $5,000.
Citi recently created a hybrid automated-human program that uses the company’s robot to manage accounts and a human investment advisor to create a financial plan and perform other advisory functions. The program is called Wealth Builder Plus and costs a little extra (0.60% per year). There is a $25,000 account minimum as well.
Margin
As for the cost of borrowing other people’s money, Citi Self Invest uses a traditional tiered system.
It begins at 12.75% and ends at 6.25% for loans above $5 million.
Website
To manage accounts and place trades in a self-directed account, Citi has a simple website. We do want to stress the word simple here because the website is very sparse. There are no advanced trading tools of any kind.
Charts on the Citi website are very elementary. There are no technical indicators, drawing gadgets, or other charting tools that are standard in the industry. A chart does have up to 10 years of price history, although a graph cannot be displayed the full width of the computer screen.
The order ticket on the site has three basic trade types: market, limit, and stop. Qualifiers such as all or none and fill or kill are available. Day and GTC are the only duration choices. To actually place an order, there is a blue Buy button at the top of an asset’s profile. We do emphasize buy here because shorting is not allowed.
Another tool at the top of an asset’s profile is a watchlist icon. This can be used to add a security to a watchlist, which can later be edited. Multiple watchlists can be saved. Alerts, however, are missing in action on the site.
Mobile App
Citi Self Invest and Wealth Builder accounts are integrated with the regular Citi app that banking customers use. This setup is the same one the website uses. Tapping on a securities account brings up the brokerage tools, and there are some useful resources. Watchlists on the app, for example, sync with the website. Tapping on an entry generates the asset’s profile. Once again, charting and order entry are rather simple. The same trade types we found on the website make appearances on the app.
Customer Service
Citi Self Invest has zero branch locations. It is an online, budget securities firm that tries to lower costs as much as possible. As a result, there’s not a lot in terms of customer support. During our probing, we did find a robo-chat widget on the Citi website. However, it was not able to answer questions on investing accounts. When we tried to bring on board a human representative, we were told automatically that human associates are available Monday through Friday from 8 in the morning until 8 in the evening, EST. When we came back during these hours, the chat bot would not give us a human rep or any service on investing accounts. But phone service is a real possibility during these hours.
The Citi website and mobile app do not have many self-help features. And without internal messaging, phone is the only useful method to find help.
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Education and Research
Although Citi Self Invest is somewhat of a bare-bones securities firm, it does make an attempt to help its customers learn more about investing. It does this with a few resources. One example is a library of articles that covers a wide range of topics in the financial news. Examples we found include:
- SoftBank in talks to buy Vision Fund's 25% stake in Arm
- Wealth Outlook 2024 - Roadmap to recovery: Portfolios to anticipate opportunities
- US Steel to explore strategic alternatives after unsolicited bids
Both the website and mobile app also have security screeners. These search engines can be employed to find stocks, mutual funds, and ETFs. However, they are fairly minimalistic. The stock screener, for example, can only search by industry. The fund screeners, which are combined into one engine, can scan by asset class and fund type (mutual or exchange-traded). Results can be sorted by several issues, such as expense ratio and 1-year return.
Additional Services
Initial Public Offerings: There is no IPO trading at Citi Self Invest.
DRIP Service: Cash dividends from securities can be converted automatically into shares.
Fully-Paid Stock Lending: Missing in action.
Fractional-share Trading: Available with market and limit orders.
Individual Retirement Accounts: As already mentioned, there are no tax-deferred accounts at Citi Self Invest or Wealth Builder at this time.
Extended-hours Trading: Not available.
Recommendations
Long-Term Investors & Retirement Savers: Citi Self Invest simply has no resources for
retirement planning. A more personalized investment experience, a larger list of tradable products,
and more tax structures are available with Citigroup’s network of investment advisors, who are
located in select cities. This full-service investment firm at Citi has both advisory and brokerage
accounts that can be opened on a tax-deferred basis (such as IRAs). The drawback is that most cities
don’t have any physical locations.
Beginning Investors: Citi Wealth Builder Plus would be a good way to start investing. The
straight robo account would work as well, although we like the idea of adding a financial planner to
the mix.
Stock and ETF Trading: Citi Self Invest simply doesn’t have the advanced software needed for
active equity trading. Its research tools are also rather rudimentary. A better idea is
Charles Schwab, where advanced software and analysis tools will be found.
Mutual Funds: Firstrade
has much better search tools for mutual funds. Plus, it disseminates a list of All-Star Funds, which
are mutual funds screened by the company’s investment advisors.
Small Accounts: We can’t defend Citi’s $5,000 minimum requirement for robo accounts. Smaller
requirements are out there.
Robinhood
is a great choice.
Citi Self Invest Review Judgment
Citi may be one of the largest banks in the world, but that enviable position does not translate into a
great performance in the investing space.
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Updated on 7/2/2024.
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