Citi bags World's Best Internet Bank award

HONG KONG — Citigroup Asia-Pacific was named the World’s Best Internet Bank in 13 markets across the Asia-Pacific by Global Finance magazine.

The award assesses banks’ capabilities in consumer and corporate/institutional Internet banking across countries and service/process categories.

Citigroup was named Best Corporate/Institutional Internet Bank in 11 countries — Australia, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, the Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand.

It was also named Best Consumer Internet Bank in nine countries — Australia, China, Guam, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Thailand and Vietnam.

At the regional level, Citigroup Asia-Pacific was named winner in the Best Corporate/Institutional Internet Banks sub-categories for Best Investment Management Services, Best Trade Finance Services, Best in Mobile Banking and Best in Social Media.

“One of our key goals is to be the best digital bank in our industry, offering a comprehensive suite of Internet and mobile services that can deliver greater convenience to our customers. We are therefore honored that our broad capabilities in Internet banking have been recognized by Global Finance magazine,” said Asia-Pacific CEO Stephen Bird.

“Our superior value propositions including our digital offerings — from our next generation online banking platform to CitiDirect to the latest mobile banking offerings — are already recognized as industry leaders and transforming the way customers are served. We will continue to invest to offer innovations ahead of the competition and which make a difference for our customers,” added Asia-Pacific CEO Shirish Apte.

Winning banks were selected based on the strength of their strategy in attracting and servicing online customers, success in getting them to use Web offerings, the growth of online customers, breadth of product offerings, and website design and functionality.

This is the first round of winners for the World’s Best Internet Banks, which Global Finance magazine has conducted for the 12th consecutive year. Winners were chosen among entries evaluated by a panel of independent judges, with Global Finance editors responsible for the final selection of winners.