The Citibank VISA Debit card is a debit card that is offered by Citibank and uses VISA as the card processor.
The Citibank card works together with the Citibank Plus Account, a transaction account offered by Citibank. The account is a monthly fee based account that offers unlimited transactions. If a salary is deposited in the account then the fee is waived. It allows cheque book access, telephone banking and phone banking.
The account gives the option of linking to a Citibank savings account, and there are various ways of instituting automatic saving.
The card itself can be used as an ATM card. As well as being fee free in Citibank machines around the world, it is also able to be used in ATMs for banks such as Westpac, St. George and BankSA. This complements the rather small Citibank network in Australia. There are more than 20,000 ATMs that can be accessed for free using the Citi VISA debit card.
The card can also be used for EFTPOS transactions or as a cheque guarantee card.
Citibank is the core of the Citigroup, one of the largest financial institutions in the world. The group itself is based in New York City but its Australian division is aimed at high earners who are also frequent travellers. Its aim has been to become a one stop shop for all financial transactions from current accounts and credit cards to stock brokerage. It has 16,000 offices worldwide, more than 300,000 staff and over 200 million customer accounts.
VISA is the world’s largest credit card provider and is accepted in 29 million locations around the world. It is also accepted in almost a million ATMs around the world, although there will usually be a fee if the ATM is not a Citibank ATM. As a debit card the card can be used in the same way as a credit card for phone, mail order and on line transactions.
VISA cards are eligible to participate in the VISA entertainment programme. This allows for advance access and notification for concerts and sporting events in Australia. It is open to all VISA card holders.
There is also a zero liability guarantee which is run by VISA. This means that a person who has an unauthorised transaction on the card will not have any liability for the transaction as long as they do not contribute towards it (for example by lending the card voluntarily) and they tell the card provider in a timely manner.