Citi to Build Digital Consumer Payments Business for Institutions

New Digital Offering will use Mastercard Payment Gateway Services

Citi’s Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) is developing a new business line for consumers to make digital payments to institutions. This is part of TTS’s overall strategy to enable digital commerce for clients and extend its significant presence and capabilities beyond the wholesale payments space. Under this umbrella, a new planned service will be made available to offer institutional merchants the ability to collect from a wide range of payment methods including cards, e-wallets and new and innovative bank transfers such as Request to Pay and Open Banking -- as they gain traction. In turn, their consumers will have access to a wide variety of payments methods of their choice.

As part of this new digital consumer payments business, Citi has chosen Mastercard Payment Gateway Services, which is integrated with numerous acquirers and e-wallets globally. Additionally, Citi will enable connectivity with its proprietary transaction services and FX businesses to further enhance the offering. Citi has expanded its global payments network by establishing direct connections to new instant payment schemes in over 20 countries and is continuing to invest in these connections globally. As an example, Citi was the first corporate bank to connect to Open Banking in the United Kingdom.

“Our mission is to power frictionless payment acceptance with nimble technology. We want to extend our leadership beyond the B2B payment space by developing capabilities to enable institutions to collect from consumers in a globally consistent and seamless fashion,” said Naveed Sultan, Global Head of Citi’s Treasury and Trade Solutions.

Benefits:
Institutions will gain more visibility into the end-to-end transaction lifecycle, allowing them to focus on their business operations and growth; consumers will benefit from payment ubiquity through a localized payment experience. Institutions will have access to Citi’s payment network through a single platform, leveraging the strength of Citi’s on-the-ground presence, in-market expertise and relationships with payment providers. The solution is acquiring-agnostic providing institutions the opportunity to bring their existing acquiring connections onto the gateway. Citi’s direct memberships in over 250 clearing systems will help institutions more efficiently optimize end-to-end transaction services, from consumer payments to global disbursements. Citi is also collaborating with leading fintechs to incorporate up to 140 alternative payment methods into the service.

“The partnerships that we have established will allow us to accelerate the delivery of a progressive and innovative solution. Today, we see our institutional clients using many different providers and having to piece together the solutions they are seeking. Citi’s ability to be a single holistic provider for transaction services is what makes this approach unique,” said Manish Kohli, Global Head of Payments and Receivables, Treasury and Trade Solutions, Citi.

Increasingly, established multinational institutions looking to become more digital, and digital natives are requesting the ability to have a single global window for all their consumer payments. “This is a new and rapidly growing space and we have taken a very comprehensive and innovative approach which we believe will position Citi as a leader among both existing and new market participants,” Kohli added.

The Mastercard solution offers a global payment platform with 180+ acquirers already integrated, simplifying the onboarding experience. Citi chose to leverage Mastercard Payment Gateway Services to combine the assets of both companies to bring a comprehensive solution to the market.

“Every institution wants to focus their time on providing their customers with the best experience or the best product. Our trusted technology helps them do just that. We are excited to work with Citi and their leading transaction services business. As they integrate Mastercard Payment Gateway Services, they’re making the whole process simpler for Citi’s institutional clients to accept payments from anywhere in the world and continue growing their businesses,” said Michael Miebach, Chief Product Officer, Mastercard.

Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) enables its clients' success by providing an integrated suite of innovative and tailored cash management and trade finance services to multinational corporations, financial institutions and public sector organizations across the globe. Based on the foundation of the industry's largest proprietary network with banking licenses in over 90 countries and globally integrated technology platforms, TTS continues to lead the way in offering the industry's most comprehensive range of digitally enabled treasury, trade and liquidity management solutions.

About Citi

Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management. Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com | Twitter: @Citi | YouTube: www.youtube.com/citi | Blog: http://blog.citigroup.com | Facebook: www.facebook.com/citi | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/citi

About Mastercard Payment Gateway Services

Mastercard Payment Gateway Services is part of the Mastercard family, offering advanced payment processing and fraud prevention technology to merchants, technology partners and acquirers. The Gateway technology enables consumers to pay for goods and services in the way they want, in a fast, reliable and secure manner. Customers use the Gateway in order to benefit from new commercial opportunities and meet clients’ needs across new channels and markets. Follow Mastercard Payment Gateway Services on Twitter @Mastercard_PGS and LinkedIn.

www.mastercard.com/gateway