Citi Expands Payment Exchange Capabilities With Mastercard Send

Citi has joined forces with Mastercard to expand its payment exchange options for its institutional clients. Citi announced in a news release on Wednesday (April 21) that corporate and public sector Citi Payment Exchange clients can now integrate Mastercard Send to transmit funds to consumer debit or prepaid card accounts. This arrangement makes Citi the largest global treasury bank using Mastercard Send.

Citi Payment Exchange is a program that gives Citi’s commercial clients the ability to send business-to-consumer payments using their customers’ chosen payment methods. According to Citi’s release, the program “also incorporates payee enrollment services, a payee database, online payment preference management, an administrative platform, dedicated support, bank-grade data security and storage all in one.”

Citi said the program lets organizations simplify and reduce payment costs by leveraging various electronic payment options, such as ACH and near-real-time payments to debit and prepaid card accounts.

As PYMNTS reported last year, Mastercard Send is a global push payments platform designed to help small businesses enable their merchant settlement funds in near-real-time through their acquirers. Instead of waiting for days for ACH transfers to go through, payments are received instantly.

In The Connected Economy’s Power Source – CEO Edition, Shahmir Khaliq, Citi’s global head of Treasury and Trade Solutions, spoke about the tools needed to succeed in the modern digital payments world. “The key to fulfilling the promise of this ongoing digital payments evolution will be around delivering choice, convenience and speed,” he said. “While these characteristics often overlap, each plays a vital role in meeting the demands of the marketplace. At Citi, we understand that meaningful innovation in today’s digital economy requires the combination of choice, convenience and speed to deliver a superior customer experience.”