American banking giant Citigroup has joined forces with Singapore based ride-hailing company Grab to launch co-branded credit cards.
The launch is part of the banking group’s strategy to boost its customer base in South East Asia by nearly 13% through partnerships with digital firms, a senior Citigroup executive told Reuters.
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“Today we have about 16 million customers in Asia, and our aspiration is to increase this by about two million in the next few years through partnerships alone,” Citi head of consumer banking for Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa Gonzalo Luchetti told Reuters.
For the ride-hailing company, the launch co-branded credit cards marks its entry into the financial services sector, one of the areas it has been eyeing to boost revenue.
GrabPay managing director in Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines Huey Tyng Ooi said: “The Citi-Grab credit card is a natural next step as we create more value for our digital first, always in GrabPay users.”
The Citi-Grab co-branded credit cards have been initially launched in Philippines. The credit cards will be launched in Thailand later this year prior to launching them other Southeast Asian markets, the report added.
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By GlobalDataCardholders will receive Grab points on each spend using the app. They will receive three times more points from Citi on online subscriptions and dining and entertainment purposes, according to techinasia.com.
Cardholders will also get 12 complimentary Grab rides upon spending PHP10,000 (~$200) within 60 days of getting the card.
Currently, Citi is one of the leading credit card issuers in the country. In March 2019, it issued over 2.7 million cards.
