Citi has launched an application programming interface (API) solution for treasury services, allowing clients to connect their own software directly to the platform.

The API, called CitiConnect, is a platform for payment initiation, payment status and account balance inquiries across 96 countries. Citi’s clients can now develop their own interfaces to ‘plug’ this solution into their own treasury workstations or enterprise resource platform (ERP), making these activities more convenient and less risky.

Naveed Sultan, Citi’s global head of treasury and trade solutions (TTS), says: “API-based integration is one of the biggest topics across the industry. And with CitiConnect API, TTS offers the right solution on a global scale. This new, innovative offering provides Citi’s clients ultimate flexibility and choice of how, where and when they want to access Citi’s network using their existing treasury applications.”

The bank tested the API with “a core group of clients”, who integrated it into their treasury processes to deliver payments in real time, and collect information on the status of their payments.

Citi plans to add further functionalities to the application in the future, including service inquiries, account management and liquidity services.

The announcement comes weeks after Standard Chartered launched its own API for transaction banking. Other banking APIs have been launched by National Bank of Australia (NAB), the Oversea China Banking Corporation (OCBC) and BBVA (according to developer website programmableweb.com), but none of them focused on transaction banking.

Derek Rego, Citi’s global head of electronic banking channels, TTS technology, adds: “Across every industry, APIs are proving to have significant business impact. At Citi we believe it can help our clients quickly build modern, cross-functional banking applications.”