Citi's Evolving Mobile Landscape

The bank is constantly looking to improve its mobile offerings based on customer feedback.

At Citi, getting mobile right means meeting customer expectations and making things fast, easy and simple.

According to Melissa Stevens, managing director of Citi internet & mobile, mobile is a constantly evolving channel, and the bank believes for it to reach its full potential, mobile must be centered around the client.

"Our mobile strategy is critical to going forward, digital is where our customers are at and where we need to be," says Stevens. "Mobile is so important to us, it allows us to be able to be in our customer's hands when they need banking information or transactions wherever they are."

Stevens says the bank seeks feedback from its customers on what they want from a mobile banking experience. She says primarily they are looking for easy access to account information on the go and the ability to transact.

Citi used that feedback when it rolled out its next generation mobile app in February. The new features of the upgraded app includes a beta test of a service called Citi Mobile Snapshot, a new opt-in feature that enables customers to check deposit and credit card balances and recent transactions without having to log into their accounts. The new feature will help enrolled banking and credit card customers monitor their accounts on-the-go by displaying balances and the 15 most recent transactions without requiring them to log in every time, she says, while all account transactions will continue to require log-in authorization.

Looking into the future, Stevens believes that geo-location features will become a bigger part of the mobile experience. Also, the camera and voice capabilities of the smartphone will be used further than they are now. She says the camera can be used to aid in account opening by capturing document information, while she expects voice navigation functions to also come to the forefront.

Stevens says no matter how it evolves, it's clear that mobile will be an integral channel for banks in the foreseeable future. To hear more from Stevens and other mobile banking thought leaders, please register for our Mobile Banking Disruption Forum taking place May 14 in New York.

Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio