While the article’s title suggests some sort of case study, this Fintech Futures posting is really a summary of Citi’s approach to deliver on modern digital capabilities for corporate clients. As one of the top corporate banking institutions in the world, Citi has always had the reputation of being on the leading edge of technology development and delivery. This piece describes that approach.
‘For Citi’s corporate clients, the move to a streamlined digital world has also brought about process automation and a move to real time and visibility within processing. The demand for this, and the technological capability to do so, has happily dovetailed with the move to Open Banking, which enables greater connectivity through API data flows.’
The Citi folks interviewed in the indicated article are EMEA executives (Europe, Middle East & Africa), therefore naturally cognizant of the open banking regulations that are helping to spur on the digital transformation of industry and banking services. After all, in order to comply with EC directives (not to mention market/client demand for better experiences), digitization is a must. Items of interest among their clients include the mention of real-time payments, which have been available in the UK for a numbers of years and recently buoyed by SCT Inst across the EU, but also where several other systems are deployed or in progress elsewhere across the region, including Africa. This is being combined with the open banking movement to deliver better services to corporate clients, where Citi typically stays out in front of the pack.
‘The potential opportunities afforded by Open Banking have received a lot of attention. Citi is one of the first banks to join the UK’s Open Banking directory as a payment initiation service provider (PISP) and now intends to leverage Open Banking to provide an aggregated collections service for its business clients, tapping the standardised open APIs of the country’s largest nine banks.’
For a number of years Citi also has been providing treasury and trade services clients with the ability to integrate between Citi global accounts and other enterprise systems (such as ERPs) through its solution called CitiConnect. Through provision of APIs through CitiConnect, bank clients can gain real-time access to information around cash management services such as FX and account statements, and of course payments. There is also the ability for developers to access a sandbox for the corporate clients to further enhance and test how they interact with Citi data and services.
‘The platform is also linked to a sandbox – the CitiConnect API Developer Portal. This is an online repository where customers access the latest documentation on Citi’s APIs in a sandbox environment where they can perform technology testing and validation. It can accelerate technical development and improve the quality of technology integration. The other benefit to the sandbox environment is that it can be used as a means to onboard.’
Perhaps more case-type information is in the Banking Technology magazine full article mentioned at the end of this posting.
Overview by Steve Murphy, Director, Commercial and Enterprise Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group