Citibank International Personal Bank, part of Citi, the giant US bank, has launched a currency option product designed to boost the returns investors can earn from short-term cash deposits. Citi’s Dual Currency Placement is a fixed short-term, fixed-interest investment which uses options to enhance returns. A client chooses a base currency in which to deposit money, such as sterling, for a period of up to one month. The client also chooses another currency in which to be repaid, such as the US dollar. Meanwhile, the client sells Citi a call option which gives the bank the option to buy at a specified exchange rate between the base currency and his second preferred currency. Citi says this dual-currency product can earn investors superior returns because clients earn income from selling call options. Partly offsetting these gains, however, is the fact that clients are repaid deposits in whichever of the two currencies has weakened during the course of the deposit’s life. The Citi product comes at a time when more financial service companies have been offering currency-based products to reduce the adverse impact of an exchange rate move, earn additional income or reduce debt payments. A number of private banks, for example, offer high net worth clients the ability to repay mortgages in currencies other than their base currency to reduce debt. Citi says the minimum investment amount with its Dual Currency Placement service is $20,000 or its currency equivalent.