Citi’s India retail customers in for a refresh as Axis integration nears completion

Mumbai: Axis Bank Ltd expects to complete the integration of Citibank’s domestic retail assets with its systems by the middle of July, 16 months after it acquired the foreign lender’s India consumer business.

“We are hoping the transition will get done in the middle of July. Obviously, that will lead to a change for customers in terms of their access channels,” Arjun Chowdhry, group executive and head of retail assets, payments and affluent banking at Axis Bank, said in an interview. 

“Phone banking won't change much because customers are used to the same team and the same number. The app and the website will change, and I think customers will really like the new app and website as they get used to them,” said Chowdhry. 

“The other thing that we did was create go-to products for customers and map all the erstwhile Citi products, creating equivalent products on the Axis side,” he said.

Axis Bank has been operating under a transition services agreement with Citi since March 2023, which will conclude once the systems are integrated, said Chowdhry, who spent nearly three decades at Citi before joining Axis following the asset sale last year.

Axis Bank had earlier said it would incur a pre-tax cost of ₹2,000 crore for TSA services and integration expenses over ­18 months.

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Axis Bank completed its acquisition of Citibank’s India consumer business for ₹11,603 crore in March 2023. The transaction included credit cards, retail banking, wealth management and consumer loans, as well as the transfer of about 3,200 Citi employees. 

New credit cards incoming

The bank will start introducing new credit cards and other products in mid-July, he said, adding that there will be almost no changes for Citi credit card customers. “In fact, when Citi customers migrate to Axis Bank, the pool of reward points which they already have will remain evergreen and will not expire.”

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With 14.3 million outstanding cards at the end of May, Axis Bank is the fourth-largest issuer of credit cards in India. HDFC Bank leads the pack with 21.1 million, followed by State Bank of India (through its subsidiary SBI Card) with 19.1 million and ICICI Bank with 17.1 million. 

Chowdhry also said the cohort of 3,200 consumer business employees from Citi India has seen lower attrition than the industry. “While we can’t quote a number for a sub segment, it is significantly lower than the industry,” he said.

‘Fraudulent’ credit card transactions

Based on conversations with Axis Bank customers, Mint reported in April that credit card holders faced a slew of fraudulent international transactions. The report said some users, who had blocked their cards and asked the bank to reissue new ones, alleged that fraudsters had attempted transactions on the new cards as well – even before the customers had received the full details of the new cards. 

Also read: How some Axis Bank credit cards became fraud targets

Asked how fraudulent transactions could have been attempted before customers got their new cards, Chowdhry said these allegations were “factually incorrect” and that the bank had issued a clarification.

“We checked those cases. There was no such case,” said Chowdhry. “It was something called an enumeration attack, also known as a bin attack, in which certain fraudsters, usually overseas, try to guess the card number. This is not a unique phenomenon in the industry, and happens across the world.”

He added that in this case, customers didn’t suffer any losses and the bank didn’t either because it reversed those transactions. “We explained this to the regulator and to our customers. It was resolved pretty quickly,” said Chowdhry.