Citi Rolls Out Digitized Records For International B2B Payments

Citi has rolled out a new offering for its institutional customers that accelerates the handling of their international payments by digitizing supporting records. The offering combines the submission of international payment instructions and the records connected with them on one digital platform. It is being launched in South Africa at first, according to a Monday (March 8) announcement.

Businesses that send international payments have to give supporting records to their financial institutions (FIs) to satisfy different foreign exchange (FX) control and regulatory reporting mandates. Up until now, those records were received and handled independently from the payment instructions, meaning that non-automated work to connect them was needed, the announcement stated.

However, records can be finished, handled and monitored digitally through Citi’s CitiDirect BE electronic banking platform. The platform also offers upfront details about the record and data needs for various payment types to users. It establishes clear connections between payments and related records, while decreasing record fulfillment and processing times, according to the announcement.

“Our strategy involves looking across every aspect of our business to identify ways to automate manual processes, both our own and those of our clients, to create new banking tools and solutions befitting a digital age,” Manish Kohli, global head of Payments and Receivables at Citi, said in the announcement. “This has led to the development of highly beneficial solutions such as digitized documentation that create a better overall experience for our clients, in addition to helping them do more, in less time, with fewer resources.”

The news comes as treasurers met the immediate disruption from the worldwide pandemic in 2020 with an abrupt demand for digital offerings from their FIs. The name of the game was resiliency, and digital, cloud-based offerings turned into lifelines for finance leaders working to foster business continuity amid telecommuting teams, interruptions and business model shifts.

Presently, the treasury department has settled into the new normal of the pandemic market, although that doesn’t mean that its digital aspirations have waned. On the contrary, Kohli previously told PYMNTS that treasurers keep seeking offerings that foster digitization, flexibility and resiliency.