Citi is furthering its “technology for good” focus, deploying two tech leaders to serve as chief technology officers at minority-owned community banks and turning to open banking in its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.

The initiative, announced today but enacted earlier this month, saw Abhijit Bhattacharya, Citi director of engineering and partnerships, join $187 million Columbia, S.C.-based Optus Bank, while Valerie Scruggs, business senior technology lead analyst, SVP, joined $365 million Durham, N.C.-based M&F Bank. The move is part of Citi’s larger Minority Depository Institution (MDI) Rotational Program, which sends Citi executives on rotational assignments to support growth at smaller banks.

The choice to focus on technology was critical for both $2.3 trillion Citi and its partner banks, Shadman Zafar, chief information officer, global head of consumer technology at Citi, told Bank Automation News.

“For smaller and growing institutions, technology is one of the key critical areas for them to succeed in today’s market,” Zafar said. “There’s competition from fintechs, there’s competition from larger banks, there’s competition from nontraditional institutions who are offering services that are finance-related. And they’re all coming from technology backgrounds.

“Having cutting-edge technology for small institutions has become more relevant these days,” he added.

Metrics for success

Citi will help the banks to achieve differentiated technology goals: Optus Bank will pursue an “IT strategic plan,” Zafar said, focusing on evolving digital channels, product processes and core technology integrations on the front end, while M&F Bank will key in on automating its lending processes.

“The way we would like to see it is that a year later, M&F Bank comes and feels that they have digitally transformed loan operations in place,” Zafar told BAN. “And similar for Optus Banks, that they have an approachable, full transformation of technology stack.”

Citi is eyeing the possible expansion of the program’s partners, Harold Butler, Citigroup managing director for the public sector group, told BAN. Butler leads the program for the bank’s Diverse Financial Institutions Group.

“Our focus today is really supporting the firms that have outwardly expressed interest in working with Citi, of which there are about 12 or 13,” Butler said. “As part of our remit for the Diverse Financial Institutions group, we’ll expand that number. So today, it’s primarily Black-owned banks, but we also work with a Native American-owned bank and just onboarded a Hispanic-owned bank.”

Open banking

Along with the potential for program expansion, Citi is eyeing plans to guide its open banking services to support MDI and DEI initiatives. Citi was an early proponent of bank-led open banking in the U.S., launching the API-based Citi Developer Hub in 2016 and building a tokenized open API “marketplace” in 2020.

“Open banking typically has been used to focus on growth with the partners,” Zafar told BAN. “We are looking at open banking to be able to be utilized as a platform for further efforts on MDI as well.”

Outside of strictly digital efforts, Sandy Furlow, Citi business operational risk management director for mortgage originations oversight, will join $550 million, minority-owned Industrial Bank in Washington, D.C., later this week in order to help grow the bank’s mortgage business.

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