Celent Model Bank Award: Citi: CitiConnect API

Winner of Celent Model Bank 2017 Award for Open Banking. Few banks have advanced open API development for transaction banking services and corporate customers. Citi’s Model Bank submission stood out as one of the first universal banks to roll out integrated API capabilities for transaction banking across the institution's global footprint.

Secure, publicly accessible Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have been around for more than ten years in the financial services sector. According to ProgrammableWeb.com, banks and Fintech firms published almost 280 new payment, financial, and banking APIs in the past two years. However, except for a smattering of bank API hackathons featuring mock customer account data, traditional brick and mortar banks have been reluctant to publish open, external APIs for customers or third-parties to access financial data.

Now, regulatory initiatives in Europe and the UK are driving banks to create open API developer portals to allow third party access to banking services. With a focus on consumer account services, emerging Open Banking API developer portals primarily are sandboxes; test environments that allow developers to mimic the characteristics of a production environment.

With the CitiConnect API, Citi’s Treasury and Trade Solutions (TTS) business continues to evolve its transaction banking channel services suite to transform the business and to deliver a seamless, end-to-end client experience. The CitiConnect API allows clients and partners to integrate directly with Citi for real-time access to their data and banking services.

"The addition of CitiConnect API to Citi's transaction banking channel solutions combines on-demand data access with host-to-host integration," commented Patricia Hines, Senior Analyst in Celent's Banking practice. "CitiConnect API demonstrates Citi's promise to pursue new technology solutions that meet evolving client needs and enhance users experience."

CitiConnect API Solution Overview