Banking on art

Citibank adds art advisory to its services

It is not unusual that a bank should offer its premium customers consultations on tax or real estate, but Citibank India has become the country's first financial institution that has engaged an art gallery to offer an art advisory service.

It has tied up with Chennai-based Apparao Galleries for a period of two years as part of its CitiGold Wealth Management platform. The idea could pave the way to more pathbreaking customer relationships, as Citibank attempts to professionalise the art market.

Experts in the industry share that ultimately it may be the bank's objective to move into areas where it will have the first mover advantage, such as art insurance, art storage (on the same principle as lockers) and using art as a tradable collateral.

Bank sources are unwilling to comment on this just yet. Sharad Mohan, vice president, Citibank India, says: "Art is certainly an interest area amongst our customers, both as an investment as well as for pleasure. Along with the tax and real estate advisory services, the art advisory service adds yet another dimension to our CitiGold Wealth Management platform."

For the moment, this means supporting Sharan Apparao's efforts in creating and distributing, through Citibank, a quarterly newsletter on art, two art shows a year that will travel to major metros of the country, and art seminars, the first of which was kicked off in Bangalore and has now travelled to Delhi (July 7 and 8) before winding up in Mumbai.

"Our basic aim is to offer our customers information on art and thus enhance exposure to it. We will be keenly monitoring our customers' response to this service which comprises art shows, art seminars and newsletters on art," says Mohan.

Apparao is more kicked about the effort being made to personalise the service.

"I will respond to queries from the bank's premium customers on managing and maintaining their art. That includes advising them on what to sell, or buy, at a particular time. It means providing them information on restoration, on lighting their collections, or on prices."

Apparao has a gallery in Chennai, and is launching another in Delhi, besides booking galleries in both Delhi and Mumbai for extended periods in season, for promoting art shows.

"The newsletter," explains Apparao, "will be simple, not pedestrian but not too esoteric either. The art shows, on the other hand, will not be experimental, they will feature well-known names."

The current seminar and art show, called Ruminations, consists of collectable artists, among them K H Ara, Anjolie Ela Menon, Arpita Singh, Bikash Bhattacharya, Jahangir Sabavala, Krishen Khanna, Jamini Roy, M F Husain, Manjit Bawa, Ram Kumar, S H Raza, F N Souza, Sakti Burman and Vivan Sundaram.

In Bangalore, hungry for good art shows "" attended largely by "young, sincere, eager" buyers and viewers, reflecting the city's phenomenal surge in lifestyle needs "" the maiden show was able to sell as many as 18-20 works from the exhibition. Both Delhi and Mumbai are expected to fare even better.

Citibank will pay Apparao Galleries an undisclosed fee for outsourcing the advisory service, and will support all collaterals for the shows. The bank will not make any commissions on sales.

On her part, Apparao is guiding Citibank in putting up shows of younger artists at its branches. "I'm only guiding them there, making them sensitive to art. I have no financial interest there," she says.