US customers of Citi-issued MasterCard credit cards can begin using Citi Pay, the bank’s proprietary mobile wallet, according to ATM Marketplace.
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Citi Pay comes to the US (C)
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This marks Citi Pay’s fourth market, following launches in Australia, Mexico, and Singapore.
Citi Pay, which was built in partnership with Masterpass, allows Citi customers to make online and in-app payments at Masterpass merchants with the same credentials they use for online banking. Android users can also make NFC-based in-store payments.
This could be a strong play for Citi.
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But it isn’t great news for the mobile wallet ecosystem. Citi Pay is a particularly late entrant to an already-fragmented Android wallet market — Android users have Android Pay, Samsung Pay, bank-based apps, retailer-specific wallets, PayPal, and more — where adoption is already tenuous. For consumers, a major barrier to wallet usage is not knowing where a wallet can be used. Adding more choices could create mental friction that might push consumers to eschew wallets entirely and resort to simpler physical cards that are accepted across the board, ultimately creating the potential for further stagnating adoption of an already unpopular product category.
Ayoub Aouad, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on payments disruption that:
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