Checking your account balance or paying a bill used to involve a trip to the bank, and in recent years, logging on to your home PC. Today, Citibank is making banking easier than ever for its U.S. customers by expanding its mobile offering to smartphones, including most BlackBerry smartphones, Palm devices and iPhone mobile devices. Now, more Citibank customers can access and manage their bank accounts – anytime and anywhere – via their smartphone’s mobile browser.

It’s become clear that consumers are no longer using their smartphones for business purposes only. According to Nielsen’s Q1 2009 Mobile Insights survey, 62% of recent smartphone acquirers use their devices for personal reasons, such as taking photos or texting friends, while only 10% use them solely for business. Additionally, consumers are switching to smartphones at a rapid pace, with smartphones accounting for 22% of all devices acquired in the past six months, increasing total market penetration in the U.S. to 16%.

The new Citi Mobile offering allows users of web-enabled mobile devices including BlackBerry smartphones, Palm devices and iPhone devices to easily:

• View Citi account balances and account activity
• Pay bills and set up recurring payments
• Make transfers between Citi accounts
• Locate Citi branches and ATMs
• Connect to Customer Service

Citi Mobile for smartphones provides easy navigation on virtually any device that has a mobile browser and an internet connection. And signing in is easy – customers enter the same personal User ID and password they would use on their home computer.

With millions of Citibank customers banking online, many visiting the site at least once a week, and more consumers switching to smartphones everyday, Citi Mobile’s new offering provides consumers with more choices than ever for quick and easy banking.