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Citibank launches CitiBusiness

May 19 2006

Citibank launches CitiBusiness

Written by Tarachand Wanvari

Friday, 19 May 2006

Citibank India, a part of Citigroup launched "CitiBusiness", a suite of business and financial solutions targeted at the small businesses and professionals (SBP) community with annual turnovers of upto Rs. 50 crore (~ USD 10MM) .

Small and medium size enterprises make up 95% of businesses in Asia Pacific. In India, the small businesses and professionals (SBP) community is estimated at more than 3 million, representing over 98% of business enterprises locally.

Through this new offering, Citibank responds to the key insights obtained on the present-day needs of the SBP community from their financial services providers. According to an independent survey commissioned by Citibank in November 2005, it was found that small business companies and professionals in India often lack the resources, support and networks to expand their business. Among the findings is the fact that the SBP segment is over-banked but under-served. These companies demand a l ong-term relationship orientation, product customization and flexibility, financial partnership for overcoming scale disadvantages, all which providers typically offer only to large corporates.

The Survey further concludes that SBP segment participants are disappointed that banking services received by them are merely transactional services and small loans, and because of their size and relatively low cash flow requirements, their relationship itself is often not well attended. Furthermore, SBPs employ fewer people and hence do not have the manpower for non-core business activities such as Accounting and HR, as their larger counterparts. All of these weaken SBPs competitiveness and restrict their expansion.