Citi recently announced an upgrade to their mobile app to help add features and streamline the app offering; the new app features more financial management tools, you can open an account on your device and pay bills; they also added a 360 Financial View tool to give the customer a full understanding and view into all their accounts, Citi and non Citi accounts; the app is part of a broader digital strategy the bank has been pushing in recent weeks. Source.
According to a new study by Accenture 7 out of 10 consumers would be reluctant to share their Information with third party providers; Citi recently published a study pointing to three main reasons that wide scale adoption will take longer; reasons include slow consumer adoption, fragmented market for new open banking services and the ability for payment providers to adapt to new rules; thus far open banking has been slow but big banks like Lloyds Banking Group and RBS have made big tech investments anticipating the change will happen over time. Source.
BBVA Compass, Capital One, Silicon Valley Bank, Citi, CBW Bank are some of the early adopters of open APIs that are beginning to transform how banking operates; the big question is how open will banking become and will it be mandated by legislation or will banks work with only those they trust; the one thing all banks are starting to do is make bigger investments into digital products, whether through partnerships or development as they see that the old way of banking will not survive. Source.
Citi has reduced their branch network by more than 16 percent in the last two years and has plans to continue this trend; the bank has seen their retail banking revenues grow despite less branches as their digital channels have picked up the slack; digital users grew 13 percent and mobile users grew 21 percent as the company looks to expand their digital footprint; “We’re making investments in digital, and growing our franchise through digital rather than the physical footprint,” said CFO John Gerspach on an earnings call; the company has also looked to retool branches by rolling out digital aspects in the branch using computers and iPads. Source.
Many of the major US banks are now adopting digital strategies into their business; Lend Academy shares progress from JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi and Goldman Sachs. Source
Citi thinks startups are missing out on a big opportunity and is inviting startups to disrupt institutional banking; Citi has taken a close look at thousands of fintech startups so far and has taken a position in about 30 so far; “Contrary to the common belief, I think there is more opportunity for collaboration with fintech than disruption,” Naveed Sultan, global head of treasury and trade solutions for Citi said during a fireside chat reported by TechCrunch. “Particularly on the institutional side.” Source.
Citi and PNC striking a deal with HighRadius is the latest example of banks forming partnerships to improve commercial payments; HighRadius has already done partnerships with Bank of America, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble and Starbucks; HighRadius uses artificial intelligence to help automate some of the slower more paper driven processes in commercial payments. Source.
Citi’s mobile app users grew by 21 percent the past year to reach 9 million users; this adoption is a lot slower than peers at Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo who see mobile app users over 20 million; Citi’s growth for the past year is higher and their adoption is beginning to increase; Citi was slower to the game of adopting the new digital features but has since started to catch up by launching Citi FinTech; the new unit has helped the company to launch over 800 digital increases in the past year, a 300 percent increase; the company is planning to keep investing heavily in fintech and is optimistic about their future adoption trends. Source.
A consortium of banks that include JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse and Citi trialed a distributed ledger platform that proceeded equity swaps from beginning to end; the AxCore platform by Axoni would allow for payments to process instantly and reduce potential disputes; Greg Schvey, CEO of Axoni, said in a statement reported by CoinDesk, “Equity swap data is infamously complex and difficult to manage, making it a terrific fit for distributed ledger technology.” Source.
While banks might have initially been slow to act when it came to embracing digital strategies they are now able...