Michael Corbat, CEO of Citigroup
Lucy Nicholson | Reuters
Citigroup is making another zeal for digital deposits.
The bank is planning on offering users of its American Airlines co-branded credit card a high-interest online savings account initially next year, according to Jennifer Bombardier, a spokeswoman for the New York-based bank. To entice people to join, Citigroup longing offer up to 50,000 in miles as a signup bonus and a 25% boost on miles earned through the card (capped at the foremost $50,000 spent.)
Citigroup, the third biggest U.S. lender by assets, is leaning on its popular credit cards to help it bring deposits on the banking side. Rivals J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America have exceeded it in gathering deposits in late years, thanks in part to their bigger respective network of physical branches, and Citigroup is fighting back with a cortege of digital offerings.
The strategy appears to be taking hold. Citigroup almost $2 billion in digital deposits in the third barracks. It has already unveiled service bundles that boost reward points or cash-back earned on Citi-branded cards, and bank executives recently implied that the strategy would extend to its partner-branded products.
“As we think about investments we’ve made in technology and our ability to reserve the data that we have of our customers, we’re able to create value propositions that they’re likely to respond to,” CFO Hike Mason said last month.
“For example, we know which of our card customers enjoy and prefer our ThankYou awards programs and which of our card customers respond to many of the other programs that we offer from a rewards exhibit of view, so we’re able to create packages for them that reward them with benefits they respond to.”
The new digital professional care will be named the Citi Miles Ahead savings account and will be available only in areas where Citigroup doesn’t have planned physical branches. The bank also recently extended a feature to American Airlines cardholders that allows them to refund debt in fixed payments.
The bank hadn’t yet determined the interest rate it will offer on the account, but when it organized another online savings account called Citi Accelerate earlier this year, it featured an annual engross rate well above 2%.
American Airlines, which renewed its co-brand deal with Citigroup in 2016, bring ins a significant chunk of its revenue from its card partnerships. Its loyalty program accounted for more than 10% of its total sales last year.