Walter Wriston, former chief executive of Citicorp, the predecessor of Citigroup, and widely acknowledged as one of the most influential bankers of the 20th century, has died at the age of 85.

Wriston spent 17 years from 1967 to 1984 at the helm of Citicorp, and was the first commercial banker to earn $1m a year. He died on Wednesday of pancreatic cancer.