New York, May 20 (IANS) This should give Vikram Pandit, chief of the troubled Citigroup, something to smile about. The bank won most awards given to financial services providers for excellence in their advertising, collateral and digital media communication. Citi, along with its Citi Smith Barney and Citi Private Bank brands, won a total of 16 awards including four Gold trophies at the 14th Annual Financial Communications Society (FCS) Portfolio Awards here May 15.

Other big winners included Ameriprise Financial (eight awards including one Gold) and Merrill Lynch (seven awards including one Gold).

The Interactive Best In Show award went to Barclays for its online ad called “The Pressure is On”. Barclays, along with its iShares and iPath brands, won 11 other awards including two Gold trophies.

Two print advertisements from American Express, “Tina” and “Larry David”, shared Best In Show honours for the Consumer Retail category. American Express also took home three Gold trophies.

Two Collateral entries garnered Best In Show honours: Lord Abbett’s “The Craft of Managing Money” brochure won in the B2B category, while Trade King’s “Power to the Investor” brochure won in the Corporate Image category.

The Multicultural Best In Show Award was presented to BMO Capital Markets for its “Ambitions This Big” print advertisement in Mandarin Chinese.

This year’s awards competition attracted more than 370 entries, with Gold, Silver and Bronze trophies awarded to collateral, websites, and advertising in print, television, radio, out-of-home, direct mail, interactive and multimedia categories.

Winning entries were received from 34 financial services providers, including investment firms, credit card companies, investment banks, brokerages, mutual funds, insurance companies and commercial banks.

The awards were presented at a gala dinner at Manhattan Center Studios in New York City. Nearly 500 professionals from the financial services, media, advertising and marketing industries attended the event, which was sponsored by Cond