Citibank has been in India for more then 100 Years now, but I have been a customer for only about 2+ years. It’s without doubt, one of the most IT savvy bank in India, but now some of our own banks (Like ICICI and HFDC) are giving a stiff competition. This review is about some of my experiences with Citi and some of the cool facilities available for its customers.
My Experiences
I never had an irritating experience with Citi till now, and it speaks for itself, considering the fact that am easily irritable :-). I mainly worked on customer support myself and expect that all people serve their customer the way I do. But believe me, the Citi experience is terrific.
I would just like to share some of the ’features’ of Citibank that I find extremely useful, so if someone is not aware of the same, could be benefited.
Linking products
I have a Citibank savings account as well as a Citibank Credit card. Both these products as we call it, are different in nature, but its possible to link those two accounts and see a consolidated performace of the account together. It makes lots of sense, one is ’income’ and the other is a liability. I linked my savings account to the card account, and I can pay the credit card bill thru the savings account, neat? I will tell you how to do it.
Phone Banking & TPin
TPIN, in layman’s term is the password for a customer to log in to Citibank phone banking system. You can do a lot of things over phone at Citi,
1. Pay your credit card bills
2. Request for a cheque book, it reaches in a weeks time.
3. Find out your current balance,
4. Pay utility payments etc etc.
Its convenient and you can pay ur bill or find your balance even when you are on the move.
HPin
HPIN is also a password but its for internet banking, probably Citibank has one of the most matured Internet banking facility in India. I can transfer funds from one account to another,
1. Pay my credit card bill,
2. Print out my statement, I normally use it for my Reference.
3. Order a draft, to pay anyone in any Citi and amazingly its directly sent to the person and I don’t even have to pay a service charge!!!
4. Check my unbilled credit card purchases (so that I can plan in advance). I get to know the approximate amount in my next credit card bill before I get it!!!
CitiAlerts
These are other means of getting information about your account. Citialerts comes in two flavors, Email and SMS. You can configure when you want to get a alert, e.g. when ever your account is debited, you can request for a sms, you can get an e-mail whenever your account is credit etc etc. You have to try it and then you will know how powerful these trivial sounding customer services are.
Card cloned??? Don’t worry
Its a personal experience, I went to Malaysia on a business trip. I knew that Card cloning is very wide spread in Malaysia but, on couple of occasions had to use my card. The next day, after I came back to India from KL, I got a call from the Citibank fraud control unit informing me that there is a possibility that my card is cloned, they told me that they have mailed a new card for me, and requested me to cut my card into 4 and throw it away, and believe me, the I got the card the very next day. Isn’t it out of this world???
Conclusion
People may have had bad experience with Citibank as well, I don’t deny that, but I feel that if they can me , who is a ’very’ demanding customer happy, you don’t have to worry. :-). Trust me, and try out Citibank.
Rgds
RR