Delivering keynote at Mobile World congress, Citi CEO Mike Corbat says Citi sees itself as a technology company with a banking license.

He pointed out that Banking has traditionally been innovative in the financial space, from inventing new products such as the credit card, to spotting transformative projects and putting our resources to work behind them.

He recalled how Citi pioneered the widespread use of ATMs and made them an industry standard. Citi provided indispensable financing to the Transatlantic Cable and the Panama Canal—both of which revolutionized communication and connectivity in their day.

Citi’s strategy is built around what they have identified as the three defining secular global trends of our time:

Globalization—the increasing connectivity of all the world’s nations, economies and markets;
Urbanization—the concentration of people and GDP growth in cities; and
Digitization—the transformative power of technological innovations, large and small, and the countless efficiencies they create.

Citi’s digital strategy has three core pillars.

First, everything we do is customer-centric. We seek to deliver the best possible experience to our target clients and customers.
Second, our efforts must be globally common. We work to leverage our global footprint and operational infrastructure to provide one-stop solutions for multinational clients.
Third, we’re creating digital partnerships. Working with existing and prospective clients, we’re building new distribution channels that expand our reach in the digital space.

Citi on an average day, moves $3 trillion in business and institutional financial flows—and $9 trillion on peak days, or more than half the entire U.S. GDP. Nearly all of that is moved electronically.

85% of global consumer transactions are still paper-based.

A study conducted by Citi and The Imperial College in London found that a mere 10% increase in the adoption of digital money would move $1 trillion in “off the books” transactions into the formal economy—with a corresponding $100 billion rise in global tax revenues. In an era when governments are struggling to meet their obligations, that’s significant.

Citi estimates that a 10% increase in digital money usage would bring an additional 220 million people into the banking system
He concludes his keynote by saying

our future will be global—and it will be digital.

Full text of his keynote.