Citibank allows credit card purchases through text

MANILA, Philippines - Citibank, the largest credit card issuer in the country, plans to boost market share by pushing prospective cardholders to make purchases using mobile phones. Citibank on Friday launched CitiMobile, which allows cardholders to order food, reload prepaid phones, buy Internet time, or pay bills without having to swipe their plastic cards. Cardholders enrolled with CitiMobile just have to send their authorization through text to charge the transaction on their credit cards. Citibank Country Business Manager Mark Jones said such innovation in mobile phone banking is the first in the Philippines and in the world, given that similar mobile phone payment systems have been done with debit cards. The Philippines, touted as the "texting capital of the world" with about 53 million mobile phone subscribers, is the bank’s testing ground for mobile services given the maturity of the local mobile phone market, he added. Filipinos send a total of 800 million text messages a day, a significant number in relation to the 1.5 trillion text messages sent daily in the entire region. "The Philippines is a place where Citi is testing its mobile service. The Philippines has been called the text capital of the world and the continued popularity of SMS presented us an opportunity to introduce CitiMobile," Mr. Jones told reporters Friday. Citibank has seven partner-merchants for the service. The bank has 1.2 million credit card customers, cornering about 30% of the market. Officials said Citibank’s credit card business would grow by 15-20% within the year. — Gerard S. de la Peña, BusinessWorld