Citi Expands Global Availability of Virtual Card Accounts; Key Enhancements Support Growth in the Accounts Payable Space

Citigroup, through its Global Transaction Services unit, today announced the launch of its award-winning Citi Virtual Card Accounts (VCA) in South Africa and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the completion of essential enhancements to support clients’ growing use of the VCA solution for Accounts Payable spend and complex vendor payments globally. VCA is a global, electronic payment solution which offers unparalleled security, control, and efficiency using single-use commercial card account numbers.

With these most-recent launches, the Citi VCA solution is now available in nearly 60 countries, including 28 with local-currency offerings that span 17 different currencies - among the largest global footprints of any virtual card solution. In the last 12 months, Citi’s VCA global spend volume has tripled.

“We’ve seen tremendous interest from organizations around the world since the Citi Virtual Card Accounts solution was first introduced,” said Paul Horn, Global Product Director, Citi Commercial Cards. “Since our initial launch, we have continued to expand and evolve the product to better meet the needs of our clients.”

Recent enhancements provide more powerful controls and reporting capabilities for clients leveraging VCA’s 16-digit plastic-less account numbers. These enhancements further enable companies to use VCA’s single-use card numbers to replace checks for traditional Accounts Payable spend, and include:

• Clients can set the exact amount for supplier payment, to the exact penny or pence, essentially eliminating ‘short-pay’ invoices and other exceptions that require time-consuming manual processing and that can hamper reconciliation.
• A seamless, secure email-delivery capability sends virtual card numbers directly to suppliers via encrypted emails customizable to include pertinent data such as an invoice number or customer ID number.
• More robust reporting - including real-time visibility into virtual card number creation and use, enhanced supplier data, and dynamic-filtering options – is now available to support the growing use of VCA globally.

“Citi’s VCA offers organizations a secure and efficient method of paying vendors and facilitating automated card payments globally while simultaneously helping improve control, compliance, spend visibility and accounting processes,” added Horn. “With these additional enhancements, organizations will have even more visibility and control over their payments.”

Citi Commercial Cards, a division of Global Transaction Services, with proprietary issuance capabilities in 99 countries including local-currency programs in 59 countries, has long been considered a pre-eminent Commercial Cards provider to large and multi-national organizations globally. Citi Commercial Cards’ products form the core of the expense management strategies for nearly 500 multinational corporations, making Citi a premier card issuer in terms of technology, innovation and volume. For more information regarding VCA or any of Citi’s innovative global solutions, please visit www.citimanager.com.

Global Transaction Services, a division of Citi’s Institutional Clients Group, offers integrated cash management, trade, and securities and fund services to multinational corporations, financial institutions and public sector organizations around the world. With a network that spans more than 100 countries, Citigroup’s Global Transaction Services business supports over 65,000 clients. As of the second quarter of 2011, it held on average $365 billion in liability balances and $13.5 trillion in assets under custody.

About Citi

Citi, the leading global financial services company, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management.

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