U.S. financial services group Citi and Southeast Asia’s online shopping and selling destination Lazada Group have announced a partnership across key markets.
As banks continue their relentless charge into the digital world, American bank Citi has inked a deal to collaborate with a leading eCommerce site in Southeast Asia on region-wide promotions to benefit Citi card holders, the bank said in a statement.
With potentially 560 million online shopping consumers in the region it could prove to be a lucrative move for both parties. Across Asia e-commerce platforms have been growing at a phenomenal rate and so has the affinity for online purchases.
To Be More Relevant in Digital Ecosystems
Citi is Asia’s leading credit card issuer with over 16 million credit cards in Asia and also offers consumer banking services across the six markets where Lazada operates. The partnership is expected to lead to further growth in Citi’s cards business in the region and reinforces Citi’s objective to be more relevant in digital ecosystems where the bank’s clients are increasingly active.
Faced with the existential threat that tech giants like Google, Amazon or Paypal might «eat our lunch,» as one banker calls it, banks are rushing to adopt newer methods of communication.
Removing Pain and Friction Points
Earlier this year finews.asia met with John Hogue, the head of Citi innovation labs in Singapore and New York, which proof ideas to improve the U.S. bank’s services with customers.
At that time Hogue said: «The way we look at the lab here is all about how are we going to make our customers’ experience better, how we are going to remove pain and friction points.» Hogue is also part of Citi FinTech, a unit of the consumer bank developing mobile banking services.
