Dive Brief:
- Citigroup’s push for simplified banking is helping to drive adoption of primary checking for consumer banking, executives said on a Q4 2024 earnings call last week.
- Citi’s U.S. personal banking revenues grew 6% year over year to $20.4 billion. While CEO Jane Fraser credited growth in cards and consumer engagement, she also stressed the importance of simplification.
- “We put in simplified banking, so we get a much more streamlined customer proposition that's driving more of a relationship-based banking approach as opposed to a transactional one,” Fraser said on the earnings call.
Dive Insight:
Citi’s push for simplified banking comes as the bank is restructuring.
“To align our structure with our strategy, we went through a significant simplification of our organization, removing management layers and the regional construct,” Fraser said. “This has accelerated decision-making and made us a better partner to our clients.”
Citi’s hiring of top talent and the addition of new banking, wealth and technology leaders will boost digital innovation customer experience, Fraser said.
“We have raised the bar on what we demand from each other and what we expect to deliver to our clients,” Fraser said. “We have continued to innovate to improve the client experience and our efficiency.”
Among those innovations is Citi Payments Express, the bank’s “simplified banking platform.” The bank converted 4 million retail bank customers to the platform in 18 countries.
The bank spent $11.8 billion on technology in 2024, with a focus on digital innovation, new product development, client experience and cybersecurity.
It also accelerated its use of AI, launching two AI platforms to make 143,000 of the bank’s employees more efficient.
“The investments we're making to modernize our infrastructure, streamline processes and automate controls are changing how we run the bank,” Fraser said.
Not all is well for Citi’s customer experience, however. Just days after the report, a federal judge on Tuesday ruled the bank must still face a New York lawsuit accusing Citibank of failing to reimburse customers who were victims of online scams, Reuters first reported. The judge had rejected Citi’s request to dismiss the lawsuit.
