Citi Leverages Gov't Investment w/ Corp. Accounts

<B> Citi Leverages Gov't Investment w/ Corp. Accounts</B>

By Mary Ann McNulty

<I>Stamford, Conn.</I> - Leveraging the substantial investment required to implement its government agency wins, Citibank is beefing up efforts to garner more corporate business, along the lines of its recent coup in winning General Motors' innovative one-card business (<I>BTN,</I> Jan. 25). From new top management to a realignment that put corporate card sales in its new e-Citi unit, customers will find a new approach.

The biggest change occurred last fall, as Citibank announced the e-Citi commerce solutions unit to help consumers and corporations take advantage of electronic commerce, including electronic bill presentment and payment, smart cards, and stored-value options.

As part of the new unit, the bank announced a minority equity investment in TransPoint, the electronic bill presentment and payment joint venture of Microsoft and First Data Corp. slated to launch early this year.

While most corporations today look for card products that will be used in the physical world, the future promises to be much different. Some corporations already are talking to e-Citi about multifunctional smart cards that could handle building and computer access, as well as be a form of payment, said Gary Schneider, director of corporate business for enterprise commerce, based in Stamford, Conn.

Schneider has been with Citibank for almost a decade, but moved into commercial card sales last year. There, he manages a corporate sales implementation team focused primarily on the 2,500 corporations and subsidiaries with which Citigroup--the new name for the combined Citibank and Travelers--already has some type of relationship.

The bank has been pretty evenly split in issuing MasterCard and Visa cards for travel and entertainment, purchasing and fleet, as well as a one-card that combines all three functions.

For two of its largest customers--Ford and General Motors--Citibank has worked closely with Captura Software to integrate its expense reporting software with charge card feeds and reporting. Citibank also offers its Diners Club brand.

At General Motors, for example, as the corporate payment solution rolls out beyond North America, company executives will decide which brand--Diners, MasterCard or Visa--to issue in each country.

The nation's second-largest card issuer, Citibank has more than 1.2 million corporate cards in circulation, of which about half are held by federal government employees. The bank has been selling commercial cards for about six years, initially focusing on purchasing cards.

For reporting, Citibank offers Visa's InfoSpan and MasterCard's SmartData software, along with a proprietary Web-based reporting package that was released to the government Nov. 30.

The corporate version of Web-based reporting is slated for release in the second quarter of 1999, Schneider said.

Although two top Citibank executives, Citigroup co-chairman John Reed and co-head of consumer banking operations Robert Lipp, resigned from the Visa International board earlier this month, two Citibank spokesmen refuted parts of a New York Times story published Feb. 10, contending there is no change in the bank's plans to issue both Visa and MasterCard corporate cards in the future.

A Citibank spokesperson confirmed that the bank has talked about placing the MasterCard and Visa association logos on the back of its cards to create greater awareness of the Citibank name, especially as the bank continues its global expansion.