Citibank Bloopers

Does globalization automatically bring in global standards ? Or, global organizations too adopt notions of local standards ? Or, are MNCs being left behind by better managed local organizations.

These are thoughts that may come to mind if one were to use the banking services available in the country. One bank that has been in focus for one reason or the other is CitiBank. No we are not talking about how hard it's been hit by the Sub-Prime crisis. We are also not talking about whether they can survive if they book their losses this time.

We are talking about Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and the standard of services on offer. We are talking about the need for designers for putting up basic essential services. A simple definition of HCI appears in Wikipedia as given below:

Human–computer interaction (HCI) is the study of interaction between people (users) and computers. It is often regarded as the intersection of computer science, behavioral sciences, design and several other fields
of study. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-computer_interaction , 30th April 2008, 4.25 pm IST).

Citibank netbanking facility is surprisingly full of bloopers that one least expects from a global organization. These range from simple common sense errors to ones that seem serious system design errors. For instance if one were to use the investment account and pledge funds for the purchase of a mutual fund, you won't be able to see the investment history for the next few days till the time the amount gets debited and the purchase goes through. So you have no online record of funds pledged, status of investment, and available funds for withdrawl or further investment. Interestingly the help desk executives also do not have access to that information. In case the purchase fails your funds would be languishing till light dawns on the execs or the system throws up some warning, which would happen only if it is designed to do so.

There are many such bloopers on this site. For instance http://www.citibank.co.in/ has a 'citibank india' link on the top menu, which leads to this page with a parallel domain http://www.online.citibank.co.in/ ... with similar or same links. What is this... official phishing ? the second image is the main home page.

This is another one. The help desk reply comes as one chunk without formatting. The text body deals with few lines of reply and diverse topics of more products and services on offer.. as diverse as chalk and cheese. There was a time when i used to annoy my girlfriend by writing long mails without using space bar. I hope citibank is not trying to do the same to us.

Oh! this one is also good.... there are two inboxes. One inbox and another on the helpdesk page. The inbox on top shows '0' mails on several pages even when there are unread mails in the helpdesk inbox !!!! How did they manage that !

This one is also pretty good !!! This is the login page. There's a link called security tips. Click on it.. you get a pop-up window. It says you are not logged-in. Fine ! but the moment i log-in i am on to a different page !!!! Why would you then give the link on the log-in page.... and why do i need to log-in to get security tips !

Besids these... there are many more bloopers to keep you entertained. Try using the complaint form on the home page... it's not working. The Form Handler is not able to post the form. The script is not working !

Ok ! answer simple questions... first time users go to citibank.co.in ... figure out how to log in ... it has to be a trial n' error thingie.... the whole idea of HCI being intituve goes for a toss.

OK! one more... figure out what's QPIN and IPIN ?

This Global bank has only one branch in our city. There are very few ATMs. But what they have though are salary accounts of several MNCs.

How long before the sheen of Brand image wears off and local competition takes over.

And lastly the larger question. Was this interface designed by a trained designer. ? I guess not !