Compare it how?

Isn't Citi as different from Chase bank as Microsoft is from Google?

Sure - they are both "financial" companies just like Microsoft and Google are both "tech" companies.

Microsoft and Google are pretty similar IMO, since both have: a browser, a search engine, an operating system, have or have tried to have a phone, both do some amount of hardware, and both also have cloud platform offerings.

One makes money selling software and one makes money selling ads.

I think that distinction will shrink over time as Microsoft sees ads as the future of their revenue growth.

Microsoft sees ads as an add-on to existing revenue streams. It's core is software and software services.

They couldn't be more different other than both being tech companies.

People show up for their salary, they work hard for their bonus. The core part of the revenue is taken for granted as they focus on developing new parts, specifically the ads part. It allows for an up-and-coming exec to say "I made X for Microsoft, you should pay me Y% of X". So even though it would only account for a small % of total revenue it would dominate the thinking. It's how ideas such as ad supported Windows happen despite the long term deterius effect that would have on the core business.

They are all financial institutions of comparable size and using similar business models.

The fact that JP Morgan Chase reported Q4 profit at $9.3 bln on the highest annual revenue for any bank EVER, and Bank of America reported Q4 profit at $3.1bln, while Citibank reported net LOSS of $1.8bln, should tell you everything you need to know about how well these organization are managed.

I never got why people choose citi. They don’t offer best lending rates, they don’t have a vast ATM network, their credit card benefits are worse than chase/amex, etc. seems they aren’t really amazing at any particular segment but meh in all.

Their competitors are BofA and JPMC.

All three feature an investment bank, a commercial bank and an asset manager. There are a number of smaller operations which have all three but none at the scale of those three. Wells is much smaller, and HSBC isn’t a US bank. Goldman and Morgan Stanley don’t really have a commercial banks and neither do the mega sized asset managers like Blackrock.

So the thing is Citi isn’t really a bad commercial bank and is really useful for corporate treasury services if you’re a large multinational company. Their international footprint is huge and fit a lot of use cases it’s either them or HSBC.

The problem is the IB and AM are ‘meh’ and hugely inefficient. It’s not like they do such a terrible job from a customer perspective. From an investor perspective it just costs so much to do it.

We chose them because their international operations are better than the others (we do https://trinpod.us and https://trinpod.eu )

I like their Custom Cash card (5% back on your top spending category each cycle) cause it can fill in the gaps left by other cards. Their website and their app are both absolute garbage though.

They’re the only mega bank with both a 2% cash back card and a competitive HYSA

BoA has this, if you have at least $100k - a 2.625% cash back card, and with Merrill also has competitive HYSA (last I checked, 0.5% higher than Citi). BoA can be great if you have money, but sucks if you don't.

What do you mean have at least $100K? Like in one of their savings accounts? You can get 5% APY right now from Wealthfront in their savings, so you'd have to forgo a lot of interest to get that extra 0.625% over Citi's credit card.

Linked investment account counts. You just need $2500 in a checking account, the rest can be in whatever ETF or stock you'd like.

It's 100k in combined assets at BofA / ML, so if you have 100k in a brokerage account (or an IRA or a HSA or ...) you're eligible. It's not restricted to the super low yield savings accounts.

Right as others have mentioned, it's not $100k in savings, it's $100k total across their stuff.

But even if it was $100k savings, you can get ~5% APY at BoA high yield savings through Merrill anyways. I don't recommend that since Fidelity works better for that type of account, but you could do it.

FYI: Fidelity also offers 2% cash back with reasonable terms

Yup and their CMA is better than the big 4 banks offerings. Get HYSA equivalent rates but just use it like normal checking, not having to shuffle stuff around like with Citi or BoA

Fidelity isn't a bank, but they sure act a lot like a bank with the CMA account. Arguably enough like a bank that it will work as a bank for most people.

Other brokerages do the same sorts of things, Fidelity isn't alone in this. Schwab went a different way and decided to just buy a bank. Instead of like the BOA/Chase versions, where they bought a brokerage.

Costco executive card

It’s them or HSBC if you’re global.

Well, there is IBKR, if you can get away with a brokerage. They don't offer all banking services, and they definitely are not a bank, but in some cases they can act enough like one that it will work out for you.