CitiDirect BE, Citi’s institutional e-banking platform, has achieved considerable and notable success in the past decade through a single, integrated customer experience. What’s more, for the 10th consecutive year, it ranked No. 1 in Greenwich Associates’ Online Services Benchmarking study, which assesses “Best of Breed” features and functionality in online and other electronic channels.
Loyalty360 caught up with Hubert J.P. Jolly, Global Head of Treasury and Trade Solutions’ Channel and Enterprise Services business at Citi, to discuss the staggering success of CitiDirect BE.
What factors do you think contribute to this stellar ranking, especially for 10 straight years?
Jolly: There are multiple, including:
The power of the CitiDirect BE offering: Our network is unparalleled. Citi continues to invest in our network around the world, to help our client’s grow their footprint.
Citi’s focus on delivering a user-centric product offering. Citi invests time in learning from our clients, either at their offices, on in our Innovation Labs, to understand our users, their challenges, and needs. We use this feedback to design interfaces to address our users’ needs efficiently and securely.
As part of our strategy to be the world’s leading digital bank, Citi has created innovation labs dedicated to reinventing the client experience for digital banking. While we are proud of this ranking, we care more about delivering to clients what they want, and we think that our innovation labs are a major reason for both of these accomplishments.
How does CitiDirect approach its digital banking strategy and what makes it so unique and customer-centric?
Jolly: CitiDirect BE, whether accessed via desktop, or using CitiDirect BE Mobile, or CitiDirect BE Tablet, is everywhere our clients need to be. Through a single, integrated experience, our clients are empowered to execute transactions around the word, anywhere, anytime. Citi puts client engagement at the center of the innovation process. We developed these channels in partnership with our clients to meet their needs.
We invite clients to meet with us in our innovation labs to discuss their challenges and we work closely with them in co-developing and validating innovative solutions that transform banking processes, enhance the client experience, improve productivity, and leverage Big Data to generate new insights and commercial opportunities. When we are launching new services and capabilities, we work with our clients to fine tune functionality and design–and are able to deliver functionality that aligns with our client’s business processes and goals.
Furthermore, our approach is global. Our labs are located in different geographic regions; Dublin and Singapore, but serve clients’ needs worldwide. Each lab has its unique focus and areas of expertise, but all share best practices and are designed to provide a globally consistent experience. Fully interactive and linked, the labs allow Citi to connect with clients, colleagues, and industry experts around the world to discuss needs and collaborate on projects.
What behavioral changes have you seen in the past 10 years regarding digital banking?
Jolly: The rise of mobile is the biggest change we have seen in the past decade. Mobile has caused lines to blur between work and home and, likewise, our clients expect to be able to execute transactions and view their global liquidity position anywhere and anytime. This is why we launched CitiDirect BE Mobile and CitiDirect BE Tablet.
What do customers want the most when it comes to digital banking?
Jolly: CitiDirect BE is a B2B offering. Our B2B clients–whether they are Treasurers or CFOs are also individual consumers in their personal lives. Outside of work, they use consumer applications; while at work, they use B2B platforms. Whether someone is authorizing a payment to acquire a company or pay their credit card balance, they have expectations for flexible and intuitive tools that meet their needs without the need for user customization.
How do you define customer loyalty and has that definition changed or evolved in recent years?
Jolly: At Citi, loyalty equates to trust. That trust is built by partnering with our clients and by anticipating and
understanding their needs and exceeding their expectations. Our clients view us as their banking partners in helping them grow and develop solutions to address their challenges. By delivering value, reliably, our clients stay with Citi and continue to expand their business with us. It is an honor to have earned our clients trust. That has not changed.
What are you most proud of at CitiDirect BE?
Jolly: In Treasury and Trade Solutions, our most important asset is our global network and how we leverage that to inform our approach to innovation and client engagement. Available in over 90 countries, and over 24 languages, CitiDirect BE is a clear result of how we leverage our network to service our global clients. We have recently celebrated a number of successes with CitiDirect BE.
Most recently, CitiDirect BE was awarded the top position in the Greenwich Associates survey. Earlier this year, we processed over $1Tn mobile transactions on CitiDirect BE Mobile & BE Tablet since their launches. In 2015, we were very proud to have been the first bank to win “Best Mobile Services or App for Enterprise” at the Global Mobile Awards for CitiDirect BE Mobile. Those milestones and accolades are wonderful to receive, however, hearing feedback from our clients is the most rewarding. When a user tells us that they tried a new feature and it saves them time–that makes us proudest.