Do corporate customers want the same mobile banking features consumers do?
The answer was once a flat "no" large corporate accounts used to be considered too important to allow people to dash off a wire transfer on the fly or pay a large bill on the train ride home. Where was the security, where were the checks and balances?
But corporate cash managers are starting to demand the same ease of use and convenience that ordinary folks do.
Hence Citi's new CitiDirect BE Tablet app for Windows 8.1, which was announced today at Sibos. It looks and feels quite a bit like a consumer mobile banking app, just with support for more accounts and much larger dollar amounts. Treasurers and their staffs can monitor account balances across multiple countries and authorize transactions.
"Think about the journey of mobile solutions and the app culture and the millennial generation now starting to come into their 30s which makes me feel really old so they're starting to become more influential in the workplace," said Colin Kerr, director of worldwide banking at Microsoft. "So those seamless technologies they're used to seeing in their consumer lives they're starting to expect in the workplace."
The Citi app for corporate treasurers gives them some flexibility the app works on any device running Windows 8.1.
The app can be integrated with productivity tools like Excel and Exchange, Kerr said. Windows 8.1 devices can also support embedded virtual smart cards for security an IT department can wipe the device remotely if it is stolen.
