Citigroup Inc. has reduced payments to numerous top executives in the last phase of a three-year special bonus scheme that had linked their pay to the bank's advancement in risk and regulatory issues. As reported in a proxy filing, around 250 senior employees received 68% of the 2024 target in the third year of the "Transformation Bonus Program", a decrease from 94% in 2022 and 80% in 2023. The intention behind these payments was to align the compensation of top managers with Citigroup's efforts to enhance risk management and controls. The program aimed to connect remuneration with the fulfillment of regulators' requirements, milestones monitored by internal audit, and fostering a change in culture as assessed through employee surveys. Unlike the previous distributions, the final phase included a rise in Citigroup share performance. Excluding this factor, the "performance achievement percentage" set by the compensation committee was just 53%. Citigroup's operational support functions have traditionally been considered a weak area for the Wall Street institution, and it has committed significant resources to rectify these matters as part of a broader restructuring drive led by CEO Jane Fraser. In response to regulators' scrutiny and penalties, Citigroup was fined $136 million in July for slow progress in data-quality management. Recent incidents of mishandled account transfers have put Citigroup's operational controls under fresh scrutiny. The bank is currently bound by consent orders from both the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. In the filing, Citigroup acknowledged areas where progress had not been swift enough, particularly in data quality management related to governance and regulatory reporting, despite advances in transforming and addressing the consent orders. A source familiar with the situation, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the information, revealed that Chief Financial Officer Mark Mason declined his 2024 transformational bonus after receiving a $1 million award the previous year. A critical letter from a group of former employees last year had questioned the bonus program, prompting a response from Citigroup, which defended its decisions as being essential for continued progress, while refuting the accuracy and portrayal of the concerns raised in the letter.