Citi’s mobile banking offerings continue to gain traction, with its CitiDirect BE Mobile banking application recently surpassing more than $10 billion in total transaction value since its launch.  

The CitiDirect Be Mobile service connects institutional online bankers to a wide variety of mobile banking services, including the ability to authorize payments and check the status of a transaction. The app is just one of the ways that Citi is building its mobile strategy, which also includes a variety of apps geared toward consumer use.  

“I think as the corporate clients trust the mobile technology, they start to use it in their daily operations,” said Tomasz Smilowicz, managing director and global head of mobile solutions at Citi Transaction Services, New York.

“Once you do a right design of the user interface, there can be a very strong drive of the adoption and commercialization of a mobile solution in the market,” he said

“The fact that we reached $10 billion so early was definitely above our expectations. We see exponential increases in volume in these transactions through our mobile banking platform.”

Corporate angle
The mobile platform went live in Aug. 2011 and by Feb. 2012, Citi reported that $1 billion in volume had been transacted. The jump to $10 billion in transaction value over the subsequent six months shows how quickly the app is being adopted.

The mobile banking app, which is available in 86 countries, enables clients to access core transaction functionality available with CitiDirect Online Banking using their mobile phones and tablets. It is open to big multinational corporations, governments as well as small and mid-sized enterprise.

Users can receive alerts and create and authorize batch payments as well as check account balances and transaction status.

The CitiDirect BE Mobile app is available in 12 languages and 400,000 users representing over 60,000 clients.

Mobile dynamics
The mobile banking app for corporations is just one of the ways that Citi is building its mobile presence.

This summer, Citi expanded its mobile alerts service to commercial cardholders in 66 countries in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The alerts indicate key events such as whether a consumer’s statement is ready, if their payment is due or past-due and when a replacement card has been mailed to them (see story).

Citi was also singled out in a recent Javelin report as one of the financial institutions that ranks high in mobile for their strong tablet-specific strategies (see story).

Going forward, Citi is focused on continuing to roll out CitiDirect BE Mobile globally.

“Many employees are starting to bring their own mobile devices to the office and prefer to use their devices for work tasks,” Mr. Smilowicz said. “Our mobile banking platform enables corporate clients to perform some of the most important functionality from their cell phone.

 “We can see very dynamic progress in how corporate clients trust and use that system,” he said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor  on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York