Citibank is expanding its mobile offerings to smartphones, including iPhones, Palm devices and most BlackBerry smartphones.
Checking account balances or paying a bill used to involve a trip to the bank, and in recent years, logging on to a PC, but mobile banking services continue to grow. Citibank customers can now access and manage their bank accounts via their smartphone's mobile browser, without having to download an app.
“We’re constantly looking for ways to make it easier for our customers to manage their money,” said Marylou Dowd, director of customer experience for Citibank Online and Citi Mobile, New York. “Citi Mobile for Smartphones is one more way in which the growing population of mobile users can access their Citi accounts anytime, anywhere.
“It complements our dedicated iPhone app, launched earlier this year, which has already enjoyed great adoption,” she said. “Our aim is to make mobile banking increasingly easy for our customers, regardless of what type of device they use.”
Citi Mobile for smartphones is a mobile banking application built by Citibank with support from Mobile Money Ventures, a joint venture of Citi and SK Telecom that provides mobile financial services applications worldwide.
Citibank was the first major U.S. bank to launch a downloadable mobile banking application in 2007.
Citibank is a member of Citi, a global financial services company with approximately 200 million customer accounts. It does business in more than 140 countries. It has become clear that consumers are no longer using their smartphones for business purposes only.
According to Nielsen's Q1 2009 Mobile Insights survey, 62 percent of recent smartphone acquirers use their devices for personal reasons, such as taking photos or texting friends, while only 10 percent use them solely for business.
Additionally, consumers are switching to smartphones at a rapid pace, with smartphones accounting for 22 percent of all devices acquired in the past six months, increasing total market penetration in the U.S. to 16 percent.
Citi says that it is targeting the mass market with its smartphone platform. “We’re not focusing on any specific segments, because a surprisingly broad range of demographics appear to be behind the recent surge in smartphone sales,” Ms. Dowd said. “And as recently reported, many people are also increasingly untethered, depending on mobile devices for more and more of their connectivity—voice and data too.
“And across all segments, there are early signs that mobile banking is also finding a role in the home and at the office,” she said. “In other words, users don’t have to be on the move or out on the street in order to find mobile banking useful.”
The new Citi Mobile offering lets users of Web-enabled mobile devices such as RIM’s BlackBerry, the Palm Pre and Apple’s’ iPhone view Citi account balances and account activity, pay bills and set up recurring payments.
Citi customers can also use their smartphone to make transfers between Citi accounts, locate Citi branches and ATMs and connect to customer service.
Citi Mobile for smartphones provides navigation on virtually any device that has a mobile browser and an Internet connection. To sign in, customers enter the same personal user ID and password they would use on their home computer.
Citi Mobile launched its new offering because millions of Citibank customers are banking online, many visiting the site at least once a week, and more consumers are switching to smartphones everyday.
Citibank makes Citi Mobile available to all its customers free of charge, because mobile banking is now part of customers’ expectations.
“The added convenience for customers is the fact that they can now manage their accounts on the go,” Ms. Dowd said. “Mobile banking is reaching a stage where it’s not an add-on or a luxury—it’s part of the cost of doing business for any financial institution.
“Citibank.com and our branches are the main venues for advertising the new Citi Mobile for Smartphones,” she said. “We will also be using our other regular channels of communication with our users to make them aware of this new feature.”
Fuente: Mobile Marketer
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