Citizens Financial Group, Inc. today announced that it is launching accessMOBILE, a mobile banking application that for the first time empowers Citizens Bank and Charter One business customers to manage their cash and payments from a mobile device.
"This landmark application will change the way our customers can do business," said Ellen Alemany, Chairman and CEO of Citizens and RBS Americas. "In fact, accessMOBILE is the first mobile banking application available to business customers in the 12 states of Citizens' retail footprint. Managing cash and payments is crucial to a company's survival and profitability. accessMOBILE gives companies large and small greater ease and freedom in making and managing payments. It is user-friendly, secure and, for businesses in our footprint, a first."
"We listened to our customers, who told us they want cash management to be easier, more flexible and more accessible," said Prabhat Vira, Head of Citizens' Global Transaction Services Americas. "Now, with accessMOBILE, we are bringing to bear the power of mobile technology for the benefit of our business customers."
The iPhone application of accessMOBILE is available now. It will be made available in the future on Blackberrys and Droids.
The accessMOBILE application is free to Citizens' commercial and business banking customers.
Through accessMOBILE's easy-to-use and intuitive interface, Citizens' customers can approve pending transactions, view account history and transaction details, get current-day snapshots and perform intra-company funds transfers and receive alerts and bank mail - all from their mobile devices and in a secure environment.
Citizens' business customers who participated in the pilot phase of accessMOBILE are enthusiastic about the benefits it provides:
* "With this banking application, I can log in at any time from any location in the world and make instant approval and release decisions. I no longer have to assign that responsibility to someone else."
* "accessMOBILE provides me with SMS messaging, so that I receive an alert when a wire transaction is ready to be approved and released. I log in to accessMOBILE and release the wire from where I am in seconds. With accessMOBILE I'm noILE I'm no longer tied to my desk."
* "When I am traveling, I constantly need to call the office to see if a customer payment has come in. This application allows me to get the information from anywhere in real time, which will allow us to ship product and ultimately improve our customer satisfaction."
* "One of the reasons we phone in wires (wire transfers) is so that we can call them in if we aren't in the office. Going forward, we'll be able to approve them from the road."
accessMOBILE is the first in a series of "access"-branded offerings Citizens is developing specifically for the ease-of-use, flexibility and accessibility of banking functions for businesses. Said Vira, "Our products, such as accessMOBILE and others we'll introduce shortly, will provide our customers with the 24/7 access - whenever and wherever they prefer - to the financial information they need to run their businesses better and more efficiently."
The application will be formally introduced on Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at the Association of Financial Professionals convention in San Antonio.