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Tag: citi

  • Citi Launches Pay with Points on HKTVmall

    Citi Launches Pay with Points on HKTVmall

    Citi today announced its first API partnership in Hong Kong through the launch of Citi Pay with Points on HKTVmall, the 24-hour online shopping mall operated by Hong Kong Television Network Limited.  The new service enables cardholders of Citi points-bearing credit cards who shop on HKTVmall.com or the HKTVmall mobile app to offset purchases upon checkout using their reward points seamlessly without ever leaving the shopping platform.  This convenient shopping experience is made possible by fully integrating the Citi Pay with Points Application Program Interface (API) on the HKTVmall platform.

    Lum Choong Yu, Head of Cards and Unsecured Lending at Citibank Hong Kong, said: “We are excited to be launching our first API partnership in Hong Kong with a like-minded company that is renowned for and committed to ongoing innovation and providing best-in-class customer experience.”

    “Citi’s approach to open API architecture underscores our commitment to fostering closer collaboration with the digital ecosystems to accelerate the offering of our banking services in all areas of our customers’ digital lives.  Our strategy is also fully in line with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s vision for wider adoption of open API in the banking sector,” he added.

    Ricky Wong, Chairman of Hong Kong Television Network Limited said, “Since its launch, HKTVmall bears the mission to create new ways of retailing and we position ourselves as a technology applications pioneer, to integrate different technologies from different business areas. While online shopping is not only talking about displaying products on digital platform, we emphasize customer experience from the ways we do digital marketing, interface design, payment, warehousing and logistics. In light of this, we are glad to be the first API partnership with Citi Hong Kong, and this will be one of our key milestones on customers’ payment experience.”

    To offset purchases on HKTVmall with Citi credit card reward points, either in full or partially,   simply follow three easy steps:

    1)    Complete payment with your Citi points-bearing credit card*

    2)    Perform a one-time identity verification

    3)    Select the amount you wish to pay with points

    In September 2017, Citi announced the launch of Citi Pay with Points in Hong Kong, the first and only reward points redemption service that enables cardholders to offset any local purchase using credit card points on mobile phones upon receiving the redemption SMS.  The newly-formed partnership with HKTVmall takes the Citi Pay with Points experience to a new level, providing Citi credit cardholders with a new additional way to enjoy the service during the online checkout process.

    “Citi Pay with Points has been a phenomenal success and extremely well received by our cardholders as it makes spending with a Citi credit card all the more rewarding.  Today, close to 50% of reward points redemptions are conducted through the Pay with Points platform.  We will continue to enhance the service to enable our cardholders to conveniently use their points when making purchases, whether online or at physical outlets, any time and anywhere,” said Choong Yu.

    In March 2017, Citi became the first bank in Hong Kong to adopt an open API architecture by making available 30 APIs on the Citi API Developer Portal (developer.citi.com).  Through the API Developer Portal, Citi grants developers access to a variety of APIs across seven usage categories, including Accounts, Cards, Customers, Money Movement, Onboarding, Rewards, and Reference Data.

    Promotional Offers

    Between now and May 31, 2018, Citi cardholders who shop on HKTVmall.com or the HKTVmall mobile appcan receive a HKTVmall e-Coupon of up to HK$100 in value upon spending HK$400 or above.

    Citi cardholders* who successfully complete the first Pay with Points redemption when shopping on HKTVmall.com or the HKTVmall mobile app will receive a HKTVmall e-Gift Voucher of HK$100 in value.

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  • Mobile now preferred channel for Citi APAC clients

    Mobile now preferred channel for Citi APAC clients

    Citi has announced that mobile banking has become the preferred channel for its consumer clients in Asia Pacific.

    The bank said that during 2017 mobile banking overtook other digital channels to become the preferred channel used by Citi’s Asia Pacific clients. Mobile use at Citi has surged by 48% in the last 12 months, making it the fastest growing digital channel at Citi.

    Digital is also growing rapidly as a source of new business at Citi. Digital acquisition in Citi’s Credit Cards and Loans business grew 57% year-on-year, and digital lending now accounts for 40% of total consumer loans fulfilled by Citi in the region.

    This growth has been underpinned by Citi’s digital investments and growth in partnerships on leading digital ecosystems.

    “At Citi our goal is to deliver remarkable banking experiences to our clients wherever they are. We have been transforming our business to be simpler, faster, scalable and digital. The growth we are seeing in mobile and digital underlines the progress we are making in being increasingly relevant where are clients need us to be,” Citi said head of global consumer banking Asia Pacific and EMEA Anand Selva said

    Citi has digital credit card partnerships with leading players in the region including Amazon, Grab, Lazada, Expedia, and Airbnb. Citi also recently partnered with Facebook to launch its first banking chatbot on the Facebook Messenger platform in Singapore. Giving customers real-time information on their accounts, transaction details and rewards points balances, Citi’s chatbot will be rolled out across the region over the next few months.

    The bank is already active in a number of leading social messaging platforms in Asia Pacific including WeChat in China and LINE in Thailand. Citi also recently reached a major milestone with three million customers having registered to use its voice biometric authentication.

    Across the region, Citi’s digital banking channels and servicing capabilities continue to see strong growth in customer engagement.

    The Asia Pacific Global Consumer Bank’s focus on transforming its business continues to yield positive results. For the third quarter of 2017, the business reported a 5% increase in revenue year-on-year to $1.87 billion, representing its fifth consecutive quarter of revenue growth in the region and making it the fastest growing consumer business for Citi globally.

    A total of 17 out of Citi’s 19 Consumer Banking markets globally are now located in the Asia Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regions.

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  • Citi beta launches AI chatbot

    Citi beta launches AI chatbot

    Citi has beta launched a banking chatbot on Facebook Messenger that is capable of providing customer account information to users.

    Dubbed Citi Bot, the chatbot will make its debut in the Singapore market and be progressively introduced to the wider Asia Pacific region in the coming months. The chatbot’s launch is a world-first for Citi in a social media network.

    Citi Bot operates using natural language processing, a branch of artificial intelligence that concerns programming computers to understand the nuances of human language.

    An in-house customer experience team at Citi was in charge of the the interaction and user experience aspect in Citi Bot’s development. Citi is aiming for the chatbot to interact with customers in a personable and intuitive manner, similar to how human conversation is conducted.

    According to Citibank Singapore CEO Han Kwee Juan, the popular of Facebook Messenger deems it a suitable channel for Citi to engage its mobile and digitally savvy customers.

    Features and security

    Initially, Citi Bot will cater to basic banking queries such as checking of account balances and transactions, providing credit card bill summaries, rewards and point balances and answering frequently asked questions.

    To make for a more seamless experience, external web pages that need to be accessed during a chat session will be opened within the same messenger window.

    The second phase of Citi Bot’s development is expected to introduce features such as card activation, transaction alerts and the ability to lock and unlock credit cards.

    Customers wishing to use this service will have to first link their Facebook and Citi accounts to Citi Bot using the last 4 digits of their Citi cards on a secure Citi login page. Authentication will be performed via the input of a One-Time Password (OTP) and the answering of security questions.

    As features get added progressively, more security layers may be added based on the perceived level of risk, Citi FinTech head of global consumer innovation labs John Hogue said.

    Some 600 Citi customers and employees in Singapore will have initial access to Citi Bot, and this group of beta users will provide feedback as Citi makes incremental enhancements to the product before its planned commercial launch in Q4 this year.

    In January this year, Singapore’s POSB Bank launched an AI-driven chatbot named POSB Virtual Assistant on Facebook Messenger, which customers can use to enquire about the bank’s products and services.

    A chatbot named Jiffy Jane was launched end last month by Singapore-based insurance firm NTUC Income, which allows consumers to enquire about and purchase travel insurance instantly.

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  • Citi Philippines sweeps awards

    Citi Philippines sweeps awards

    Global Finance Magazine has announced its best digital banks in Asia, and Citi dominated the awards with multiple wins across the region.

    For the 11th consecutive year, Citi Philippines was awarded Best Digital Bank for the Corporate/Institutional Bank category.  For Consumer Banking, it was Citi Philippines’ 11th win as Best Digital Bank.

    Winners were chosen among entries evaluated by a world-class panel of judges at Infosys, a global leader in consulting, technology and outsourcing.

    Winning banks were selected based on the following criteria: strength of strategy for attracting and servicing digital customers, success in getting clients to use digital offerings, growth of digital customers, breadth of product offerings, evidence of tangible benefits gained from digital initiatives, and web/mobile site design and functionality.

    In the category for World’s Best Corporate/Institutional Digital Banks in Asia Pacific, Citi won five regional sub-category awards, including Most Innovative Digital Bank, Best Online Cash Management, Best Online Treasury Services, Best in Mobile Banking and Best Mobile Banking App.

    “This award is a validation of Citi’s successful digital tansformation.  In all that we do, we combine the stability of a banking tradition of more than 200 years and the agility todevelop fintech solutions that will best serve our clients’ interests in the digital age.  We aim to serve our customers in the ecosystem in which they operate,” said Citi Philippines CEO Aftab Ahmed.

    Citi also swept the country awards in the Corporate/Institutional Digital Bank category, winning in 14 other countries including Australia, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.

    In the Consumer Banking digital bank awards, Citi was also named best digital bank in Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand.

    Asia is responsible for 17 of the Global Consumer Bank’s 19 markets worldwide. To deliver new growth, the focus for the bank was on increasing profitable market share in key markets, and products (Retail, Cards, Wealth Management and Commercial) while digitizing our business from end-to-end to deliver a better customer experience, reduce costs and improve efficiency. In the most recent quarter Citi’s consumer bank in Asia reported its fourth consecutive quarter of growth.

  • Citi India debuts paperless cross-border payments

    Citi India debuts paperless cross-border payments

    Citi India has launched new digital cross-border payment solution designed to eliminate the need for multiple, underlying physical documents for cross-border trade payments.

    The solution aims to substantially reduces time, effort and cost of each transaction by facilitating quicker trade payments.

    With Open Account import payments, Citi’s clients can now directly share import payment information with the bank, by simply quoting Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Import Data Payment and Monitoring System (IDPMS) number, as against the earlier process of sharing multiple documents to support a single payment.

    This function will be made available on Citi’s online banking platform CitiDirect BE for clients to initiate and authorize payments.

    Citi India worked closely with the Government of India and leveraged RBI’s IDPMS platform that digitally tracks imports to develop this solution, with the aim to reduce for cross-border payments to less than three hours from the earlier same day processing.

    Debopama Sen, Head of Treasury and Trade Solutions, Citi South Asia said, “This is a huge step towards simplifying cross-border trade payments which significantly improves efficiencies for our customers and enhances the digital experience.”

    Citi India handles trade transactions for over 6,000 large, medium and small corporates across industries.

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  • Citi, Visa Launch eProcurement Platform In Singapore

    Citi, Visa Launch eProcurement Platform In Singapore

    Reports Friday said the companies are rolling out an eProcurement platform, Renepay, based on a reverse auction business model. The network will include B2B suppliers across the country within various industries, including financial services, marketing, real estate, telecom, beverages and more.

    Customers of Citi’s Visa Commercial Card will have access to the Renepay platform and can take advantage of extended payment periods without interest when making purchases on the network. The platform also digitizes paperwork typically involved in procurement processes, reports said, and aims to reduce contract negotiation time.

    The platform processes electronic purchase orders, invoices and payments, Citi and Visa noted.

    “We recognize that corporate buying is very specialized, and we wanted to provide buyers a platform where they can interact with leading suppliers online and arrive at the best price through the online negotiation center,” said Visa’s Vikram Kshettry, head of B2B partnerships in Asia-Pacific.

    “At every step of the procurement cycle, we allow corporates to decide on what best works for them including what to purchase, which suppliers to transact with and the payment process which they would like to adopt,” added Renepay founder Firdaus Morgul in another statement.

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  • Citi Indonesia posts Rp 633 billion profit

    Citi Indonesia posts Rp 633 billion profit

    Citi Indonesia recorded Rp633 billion ( US$48 million ) in net profits in the first quarter this year, a 12 percent rise from Rp 567 billion in the same period last year.

    The profit growth was driven by a 10 percent increase in net interest income, as also reflected in the bank’s total assets as of March this year that reached Rp76.5 trillion, a 6 percent year-on-year ( yoy ) surge from the corresponding period last year.

    Citi Indonesia chief executive officer Batara Sianturi said,”We enjoyed higher quality of assets in the first quarter this year with our net non-performing loan [NPL] ratio staying as low as 1.15 percent,” adding that the bank’s loan loss provision ( CKPN ) had also improved by 25 percent to Rp 131 billion.

    Citi Indonesia also fared well, as seen in the third-party funds that reached Rp 51.2 trillion, a 4 percent increase yoy with the current account and savings account ( CASA ) taking the lion’s share of 71 percent and therefore contributing to the sustained net interest income.

    The bank also set aside a minimum capital requirement of 28.86 percent as of March, the company said in a statement.

    The bank’s financing ratio for small and medium enterprises account for 9 percent of the total credit as of March this year.

    “We will continue supporting Indonesia’s economic growth by implementing fund disbursements in accordance with the government’s priority programs, including in the infrastructure sector and other industries that bolster exports and loans being channeled to small and medium enterprises.”

    Last year, Citi Indonesia garnered Rp 1.5 trillion in net profits with an asset increase of 14.6 percent yoy.

    In the digital arena, the bank also developed innovations and services by launching four smart branches focusing on digital banking solutions.

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  • Citi appoints Anand Selvakesari as Head of Consumer Banking Asia Pacific

    Citi appoints Anand Selvakesari as Head of Consumer Banking Asia Pacific

    Citi has appointed Anand Selvakesari as head of consumer banking for Asia Pacific. Anand will manage all of Citi’s consumer businesses in Asia across the 12 markets that Citi offers retail banking, wealth management, cards and mortgages in the region.

    Anand will report to Stephen Bird, Citi’s CEO for Global Consumer Banking and also has a matrix reporting line into Francisco Aristeguieta, Citi’s Asia CEO.

    Anand’s appointment is effective July 1 and he is taking over from Jonathan Larsen. Jonathan will focus on his role as global retail banking and mortgage head with the additional responsibilities of US Retail Banking and Mortgage.

    During his 23-year Citi career, Anand has led Citi’s consumer bank in China and India and was most recently Southeast Asia Cluster head for Consumer Banking.

    He was formerly Head of Consumer Banking for ASEAN & India. In this role he took charge of in December 2013, Anand was responsible for the consumer banking businesses in the ASEAN cluster, including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam as well as India.

    A Citi veteran, Anand began his career in India in 1991, and has been the India Consumer head. Prior to his role in India, Anand was Head, Consumer Banking, Citi China from 2008. He served as the Retail Banking Head in Taiwan from 2004 to 2006 and eight years in regional roles in Singapore, where he held various positions in Investments, Wealth Management and Retail Banking from 1996 to 2004.

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