Citibank is shutting down its online person-to-person payment system, C2IT, next month.
In a statement, Citibank says from 9th November 2003 customers will not be able to conduct financial transactions on the C2IT Web site. All accounts will be closed and any remaining funds will be sent to customers by cheque.
Customers will still be able to log on to the Web site to view previous account statements and change membership information until February next year when the site will be switched off.
Citibank launched the e-mail based funds transfer service in partnership with AOL in 2000. The service allowed customers to transfer funds from a bank, brokerage or credit card account from any financial institution, to any recipient with an e-mail address.
The bank cut transaction fees for the service in 2001 in a bid to woo the online auction market, which is dominated by rival P2P payments system PayPal, but take up of the C2IT system still remained very slow. Furthermore, in a survey of US online consumers conducted by research firm Gartner last year, just one per cent of respondents said they used the Citibank P2P service, compared to 33% who used PayPal.