IF YOU ask financial types in New York for their views on the world’s big banks, they usually come up with similar vignettes for each one. They agree that JPMorgan Chase is an unstoppable force under its boss, Jamie Dimon. Goldman Sachs is on a roll, with its shares up by 36% since the election (even if some worry that its Darwinian culture is going soft given all the regulation it faces). Across the pond Deutsche Bank is struggling to keep its head above water; its leader, John Cryan, embarked on a capital-raising and cost-cutting plan on March 5th. Yet one big bank elicits shrugs of bafflement: Citigroup. Its managers are anonymous and they get paid about a fifth less than their peers at other financial groups. No one is quite sure what Citi is up to or what it exists for. Once too big to fail, it is now too drab to mention.

That Citi has become the world’s half-forgotten bank is surprising. It was America’s biggest firm before the financial crisis, measured by size of assets; it is now the fourth-largest. After suffering huge losses on loans and subprime securities, in 2008-09 it received the biggest bail-out of any American bank. Citi can still lay claim to being the most important firm in the global financial system. It operates in 97 countries, from Kenya to South Korea to Kuwait. Soon it will confront its next strategic dilemma: when should it start growing again?

Citi’s roots go back to 1812, but it came of age in the 20th century, organising loans and cross-border payments for American companies abroad. In the decade to 2007 it tripled in size as it tried to be a financial supermarket that offered everything to everyone, everywhere. The government sold its last Citi shares in 2011. The men appointed in 2012 to clear up the mess, Michael O’Neill, its chairman, and Michael Corbat, its chief executive, were given three goals: to make Citi safe, to make it profitable and to return cash to shareholders. They have almost finished the job.

Consider safety first. Since the nadir in 2009, the bank’s core capital has risen by 59%, and its cash reserves by 28%. Citi’s assets have fallen by 3%, its holdings of “Level-3” (ie, hard-to-value) securities by 80%, and its short-term debts by 78%. Mr Dimon likes to say that JPMorgan’s balance-sheet is a fortress. If so, Citi’s is a nuclear-bomb shelter. If another crisis hit, it has enough capital and earnings to absorb four times the losses it suffered in 2008-09. Mr Corbat is shutting down the bad bank that was created in 2009, which has disposed of $650bn of toxic exposures—think of steaming piles of subprime bonds and Greek mortgages.

The second goal is profitability. The bank has made relatively slow progress here, but its headline figures understate returns. An accounting rule means that its balance-sheet appears bloated by tax breaks relating to its losses during the crisis. Its return on tangible equity, after adjusting for this, was 9% in 2016. If the last dregs of its legacy assets are sold this year, the ratio should reach 10%. That is below JPMorgan, at 13%, but acceptable.

With its capital base restored, Citi can meet its third goal, of returning cash to shareholders. Its share price has fallen by 88% over the past decade, so they could do with some payback. The bank is producing especially strong cashflows because its former losses can be set against tax bills. It should be able to pay out $17bn-18bn in dividends and share buybacks a year, which would make it one of the seven most generous American firms for the absolute amount of cash returned. Citi shareholders should soon receive a dollar of cash a year for each $10 of stock that they own.

If life were fair, Citi’s bosses would each be given a Martini and a medal for years of gruelling work. But investors’ expectations are seldom static. By as soon as the end of this year, Citi will be under pressure to show that it can grow again. Its revenues fell by 2% in 2016 (excluding the sales made by the bad bank). By contrast, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase expanded revenues at a rate of 3-4%. With a third of its business in emerging markets, where growth is picking up, Citi should be doing better.

The idea of the bank expanding again is not as mad as it may appear. It has room to grow without upsetting regulators (who still fret about banks being too big). Citi is 28% smaller than Bank of America and 27% smaller than JPMorgan Chase, measured by the risk-adjusted assets of its core business. Unlike European basket-cases such as Deutsche and Royal Bank of Scotland (which recently reported its ninth consecutive annual loss), Citi’s international business is viable. It ships cash globally for big firms and is entrusted with $430bn of deposits abroad—more than in 2006 and almost twice what JPMorgan Chase has. Citi’s bond-trading unit is ranked first in the world. It has a powerful presence in Asia, the only region where it hasn’t lost money in the past decade.

Nervous in 97 countries

So far, though, Citi’s managers have focused on modest projects. In 2016 the bank bought a credit-card portfolio in America. It is bulking up in equities and is investing more in its Mexican business. The risk is that excessive caution causes the bank’s global position to deteriorate. Citi’s main customer base, of American multinationals, is probably mature. Their profits doubled between 2003 and 2013, but are now falling. Citi needs to find more local corporate customers abroad, but its loan books in the two biggest emerging economies, China and India, stagnated in 2016. As Citi has been recovering, China’s big banks, ICBC, CCB and Bank of China, have built formidable networks across Asia.

It is easy to understand why Citi’s top brass are treading gingerly. The urge to make far more of the bank’s global footprint was behind the disastrous expansion of 1997-2007. Of the bank’s 17 directors, 15 are American: a global bank should have more of a mix of nationalities. And the real sign that a company is recuperating is not that it is locked in a permanent state of contrition and austerity. Rather it is that it can grow at a measured and rational pace in its core areas. Over the next couple of years, that’s what Citi needs to become well-known for.