Citibank to take solution co-developed with Bengaluru's Moxtra globally

Both companies have jointly developed an in-app video conferencing and collaboration tool

Citibank is planning to take its in-app video conferencing and collaboration tool jointly developed with Bengaluru-based startup Moxtra to other regions including the US and Europe.

The solution allows Citi’s gold plan customers to interact with their relationship managers and authenticate transactions right on their smartphones, replacing the need for physical meetings. Citi picked Moxtra to co-develop the solution after the company participated at its ‘Citi Mobile Challenge’ programme in August 2015.

“This has changed the paradigm in the access to expertise. Today if you want to look at the real estate market in Delhi or Mumbai, we can get you access to an expert for that. So if my primary platform was personalised attention, I’ve just expanded my universe,” said Kartik Kaushik, country business manager at Citibank India.

Moxtra, which focuses on building collaboration tools for the smartphone, is the latest venture of Subrah Iyar, who sold his WebX platform to Cisco. The company has so far invested $25 million in developing its platform, but Citi has become its first institutional customer, which should give it the heft to win more deals.

Usually banks adopt technology only after it has been proven in the market, but with customers’ expectations raised high due to their daily interactions with seamless new-age services such as Uber and Facebook, banks will have to reimagine themselves. 

Citi says India could be a key driver in this banking revolution.

“Citibank is far more inclusive of country offices, leveraging local partners for innovation, and India has done a fair share of this. We have a disproportionate advantage I would say of being in a country that has such a heft in startups and the entire ecosystem we have here,” added Kaushik.

Moxtra’s in-app solution for Citibank will be taken to other markets, with the startup company customising the solution based on each region’s local laws. 
 

Iyar says his firm has built the backbone of video conferencing, chat, secure document sharing, etc over the past five years but turned to enterprises to begin monetising the product.

Security will be the biggest concern in rolling out such a solution, followed by challenges such as slow data speeds in countries like India. With Citi being one among its first large customers, the company is bullish that it could win contracts in the banking sector as well as in spaces such as healthcare.
 

“We were pleasantly surprised when Citi decided to work with us because most established companies let other people try something new and learn from them and then adopt things. We built the capabilities, but to put it in the context of the security requirements and the whole process, we had to work very closely with Citi,” said Iyar, co-founder and CEO of Moxtra.

Citi says the solution is one of many innovations, both small and big, in the space of banking, all of which keep its theme of redefining banking. 

The company is the only bank in India to partner Paytm, allowing money to be directly transferred from a customer’s account to the digital wallet, as it believes a service such as Paytm would be more adept at doing small transactions than it is.

Further tie-ups have taken place with online shopping services and luxury brands such as Apple. It is looking at signing up a horde of new-age entertainment services to offer loyalty benefits rather than the age-old air miles and five-star hotel partnerships. At the centre of this transformation however, the company says, is technology and, more importantly, the smartphone.

Voices

Subrah Iyar, Founder, Moxtra

We were pleasantly surprised when Citi decided to work with us because most established companies let other people try something new and learn from them and then adopt things"

Subrah Iyar, Founder, Moxtra

Anand Chopra, head of operations and technology, Citi South Asia

“We’ve begun looking at banking from a non-traditional lens. So we are thinking is that if our customer’s life is revolving around their smartphones or anything else, let us start integrating ourselves with that. That’s what has driven the integration with Paytm or MakeMyTrip, because customers are using those services,” said Anand Chopra, head of operations and technology, Citi South Asia.

Anand Chopra, head of operations and technology, Citi South Asia

Kartik Kaushik, Country business manager at Citibank India

We have a disproportionate advantage, I would say, of being in a country that has such a heft in start-ups and the entire ecosystem we have here"

Kartik Kaushik, Country business manager at Citibank India