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Citibank has informed customers about a scheduled 45 minute long downtime on November 8 (Monday) through email, Hindustan Times reported.
According to the email, operations will be affected as Citibank’s systems are undergoing a scheduled maintenance between 3 am and 3.45 am on November 8, it added.
The outage will affect services such as online and mobile banking services, self service requests, and IVR service.
In case customers encounter dispute on any Citi credit card transaction, the issue can be raised through the 24×7 Citiphone helpline. The bank has over 20 lakh credit card customers in India – a substantial chunk of the segment, which it gained as an early entrant in the business.
Citibank’s website states that it opened its first office in India in 1902 and became the first bank to offer 24 hour phone banking in 1993. The bank launched contactless credit card payments based on Near Field Communications (NFC) tech with Citi tap-and-pay in 2009 – the first such service in India, the website claims.
Notably, on April 16, Citi said it will exit its consumer and retail operations in 13 countries across Asia and Europe.
The countries include Australia, Bahrain, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. Citigroup’s Institutional Clients Group will however continue to serve clients in the markets where it is ending consumer operations.
Citibank has around 5,500 employees in India, of whom around 3,500-4,000 are in the retail division. The bank also has around 20,000 people in back-end operations.
Many mid- and senior-level executives of Citibank India are on the lookout for jobs elsewhere, and many senior employees have already left, multiple employees, both present and former told Moneycontrol. Headhunting firms in the banking sector confirmed the trend.
Some banks have shown “preliminary interest” in acquiring Citi’s retail operations, according to multiple people familiar with the development. Among those that are understood to have reached out to Citibank are key rivals HSBC Holdings Plc., DBS Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HDFC Bank.
