Here's How Citi is Winning at Digital Transformation in the U.S. and Abroad
Digital transformation is still the number one buzzword in financial circles and more and more brands in the space are searching for innovative methods of better serving their audiences online.
Whether it's through smartphone apps, digital concierge services, online trading, or any one of hundreds of other applications, the modern banking customer is hungry for technology driven services and are actively seeking the brands which can offer the best of the bunch.
It is only natural then that our attention must eventually turn to some of the biggest players in the business and see what interesting plays they are bringing to the digital transformation game.
Citi
As one such player, with 200 million customer accounts worldwide, Citi has been devoting serious amounts of attention to increasing and improving its digital offering and has been grabbing headlines with a slew of exciting new developments.
One such innovation has even seen Citi scoop a prestigious Digital Transformation Innovation Award which is granted by digital transformation experts, Micro Focus to those brands which demonstrate exceptional creativity in leveraging technology to win in the modern digital economy. Citi's particular contribution to this field took the form of powerful machine learning, automation, and artificial intelligence software which enables rapid and seamless virtualization of the planning, running, and scaling of its digital technology performance tests.
This kind of automation allows Citi's engineering team to focus on higher level innovations, by removing bottlenecks and combining functional and performance testing into a single step.
"Citi is well known in the FinTech industry for being at the leading edge of applying technology to help deliver even greater value to its customers," said Chief Marketing Officer at Micro Focus, Eric Varness. " We often talk about taking a High Tech, Low Drama approach to solving real-world IT challenges in today's ever-evolving market, and we believe Citi is a shining example of how this is manifested."
This new testing process has helped Citi bring exciting new innovations to the table faster than ever before. Innovations such as the new CitiDirect Experience, a digital platform designed to supercharge the financial giant's offering to its lucrative corporate clients.
The cloud-powered platform deploys application programming interfaces (APIs), artificial intelligence, and machine learning to customize user experiences according to their own persona, roles, and actions. The exciting new tool presents customers with all the data points and market intelligence they need to support their business decisions, effectively manage risk, preserve capital, optimize liquidity and working capital, and drive efficiencies in their industry.
"Whether [customers] are looking for information about a single transaction or trends across a multitude of accounts and transactions, they want the information that they want, when they want it, any time of day," said Global Market Manager, Digital Channels,
Treasury and Trade Solutions at Citi, Rene Schuurman.
Citi Latin America
Citi's business operations south of the Rio Grande have also been causing a stir in financial circles recently as Citi Latin America announced the rollout of its brand-new digital account.
Building on the same award-winning CitiDirect BE Digital Onboarding, Electronic Signatures, and Digital Product Activations technology deployed on the northern continent, the Citi Digital Account is now being made available to customers in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Puerto Rico, with plans to expand to even more South American countries next year.
"Citi's Latin America business has successfully developed one of the most comprehensive platform value propositions as a part of its Digital First strategy," said Latin America Treasury and Trade Solutions Head at Citi, Steve Donovan. "Our digital value proposition has evolved from enabling clients' treasury digitization objectives, such as efficiency and transparency, to helping them compete in the digital economy."
The account will remove the need for outdated features such as wet-signed signature cards, checkbooks, or manual transactions, and make available a host of convenient digitally powered services including biometric authentication and self-service options. Complete integration with Citi's award-winning Digital Bank Platforms will also make account management easier and more accessible than ever and provide concise and optimized financial information designed to help customers make better informed decisions.
"The future of Banking in Latin America is here, and it is checkless. The Citi Digital Account will help build a cashless digital economy," said Head of Digital, Citi TTS Latin America, Driss Temsamani. "Digital adoption is rapidly growing throughout Latin America. There is a rise in Central Bank Digital Currencies, Open Banking and Real Time Payments. After four years of building our Digital Bank and transforming our business model, today we have the leading Digital Platform in Latin America to help businesses and governments succeed in the digital economy."
Final Thoughts
Citi is making digital experiences a priority when it comes to all corners of its business - retail and commercial - and wherever in the world its customers happen to be, it's making sure they have access to the very best financial technology available.