T

he Citibank Indonesia is on track to achieve 20 percent growth in the bank'€™s credit card business this year after the launch of new credit card variants late last year attracted more credit card holders, a senior executive said.

Retail head Rustini Dewi said in Jakarta on Friday that the number of credit card holders at the bank was rising, following the launch of several new credit card alternatives last year. In addition to more card options, the bank also improved banking technology, not only to attract new card holders but also to retain existing ones.

Dewi said the bank would employ strategies such as rolling out new ATMs with advanced features, as well as providing more retail offers in order to lure new customers. She explained that the new ATMs, for example, would enable customers to access a Citibank credit card or a bank account. The new ATMs would also enable customers to get stock market and exchange rate information. The ATMs will be '€œshared'€ ATMs, meaning that customers from other banks will also able to conduct transactions at the machines.

'€œWith these ATMs, we are aiming to ease bank applications, as well as the customer'€™s banking experience,'€ Dewi said, after the opening of a new ATM in Jakarta. Citibank currently has over 100 ATMs nationwide, including 22 in the Greater Jakarta area.

The bank'€™s deputy head of marketing strategy and e-business, Safitri Damajanti, said Citibank had introduced more retail offers to attract new customers. Some of the bank'€™s upcoming retail offers include the chance to win flight tickets to Singapore for new credit card applicants, in partnership with state-owned flag carrier Garuda Indonesia, as well a VISA-sponsored offer that would give card holders the chance to win a holiday package to the country that the customer supports during the FIFA World Cup 2014. The bank had one million cards circulating in Indonesia as of June 2014. Its customers are usually those in the upper-income bracket, with earnings of more than Rp 10 million (US$ 843) a month. Citibank currently does not have any plans to expand beyond the top-tier market.

Bank Indonesia prohibited the bank from issuing new credit cards for two years between 2011 and 2013, after a string of high-profile cases linked to the bank surfaced, including the death of a high-profile customer at the hands of third-party debt collectors hired by the bank, as well as an embezzlement case involving the bank'€™s former customer relations manager, Melinda Dee. (dyl)