The survey "Germany's Most Customer-Oriented Service Provider" was sponsored by the University of St. Gallen, Handelsblatt newspaper and Steria Mummert Consulting and set out to identify and reward the best 100 service providers in all of Germany from 178 participating companies.

Citibank came in ninth in the overall ranking, a full eleven places ahead of the next placed bank. As a result of this competitive advantage over other German banks, Citibank was awarded the "Special Prize Bank 2006."

"At Citibank the customer is our focus. The result shows once again that every Citibank employee lives customer orientation. With CitiGold we want to extend customer service in wealth management even further," says Citibank CEO Sue Harnett.

Launched earlier this year, CitiGold offers customers with investible assets of 75,000 euros the same quality of service and advisory that they would not receive other banks until they had invested at least 250,000 euros. In May, CitiGold was expanded with further service promises.