Shobhit Maini, Citigroup’s head of digital assets for markets, is leaving after more than 14 years at the bank.

An internal memo seen said that the UK-based digital assets lead is exiting the company to focus on an entrepreneurial opportunity in the digital assets space.

Maini started at the bank in 2010, focusing on digital assets for the past three years and eight months.

The memo, written by Citi’s head of markets innovation and investments Lee Smallwood, said that Deepak Mehra will be leading digital assets for the markets department in an expanded role.

Mehra, who is based in London, is currently the international lead for markets strategic investments.

"In addition to driving and managing our strategic priorities in the Digital Asset space, Deepak will coordinate with product partners to prepare the business for future developments in the sector, including ensuring that our digital asset strategy and related investing activity aligns with our in-business objectives," wrote Smallwood.

Citi is working on several digital asset projects at the moment, including its Citi Integrated Digital Assets Platform (CIDAP) which uses blockchain technology enabled capabilities to develop digital asset solutions through a single integrated platform.

The bank is also collaborating with Wellington Management and WisdomTree to explore tokenisation of private markets.

Additionally, it is creating and testing Citi Token Services for cash management, which would enable clients to transfer liquidity between Citi branches on a 24/7 basis.

It is also trialling token services for trade in partnership with a canal authority, which has demonstrated programmable transfer of tokenised deposits that provided instant payments to service providers via smart contracts.

The bank says it is the first to provide digital custody and settlement services to clients that are participants of BondbloX Bond Exchange (BBX), a fractional bond exchange using distributed ledger technology (DLT).

As well as this, it has acted as first Issuing and Paying Agent for World Bank on Euroclear’s new Digital Financial Market Infrastructure DLT platform.

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