newsI N S I D E

General Motors DrivesSavings, Cost Efficiencyand Convenience

The Best of Both Worlds

Meet Maati Lahroussi,Operations Manager, e-Business CommercialCards

commercialCitibank® e-Business Purchasing & Corporate Cards

Electronic AccountOne Card

F A L L 2 0 0 2

©2002 Citicorp. All rights reserved.

Commercial Cards News is published

by Commercial Cards, a business

unit of Citibank N.A., and is intended

for use by clients of its card issuing

affiliates. This publication may not

be reprinted without the express

written consent of Citibank N.A.

Citibank USA, N.A. issues commercial

cards in the U.S. Citibank Canada

issues commercial cards in Canada.

MASTERCARD is a registered

trademark of MasterCard International

Incorporated. VISA is a registered

trademark of Visa U.S.A. and Visa

International. CITIGROUP and

CITIBANK are registered service

marks of Citicorp. CITIGROUP and

Umbrella Device is a service mark

of Citicorp.

cards

Citibank®

Commercial Cards

AwardsBaker Hughes, Inc.

with their largestrebate check since program inception.

uses for the card to increase spending and ultimately

increase their rebate. One such instance of this was

the “best practices” approach they adopted, using

their purchasing card to pay for all contract labor,

as well as plans to add nontraditional spend such as

computer hardware and software in an effort to cut

internal processing costs overall.

As a result, in August the Citibank Commercial

Cards team proudly awarded Baker Hughes, Inc.

with the largest rebate check they have earned

since the inception of their card program.

By adopting a best practice approach to your

purchasing card program, your company

can also earn a rebate.

Baker Hughes, Inc., a leader in oil field services, provides

a variety of technology solutions designed to help

their customers find, develop, produce and manage

petroleum reservoirs. Their eight business units offer

a vast range of products and services to the oil

and gas industry, and their employees –– engineers,

geoscientists and field service personnel –– travel to

sites all around the world.

As one of our best practice clients to pilot the

Citibank Purchasing Card program four years ago,

Baker Hughes, Inc. has significantly increased volume

usage since moving into full rollout. They have done

this by consistently working with the Citibank

Commercial Cards team to identify new

Left to right:

Ann Levy,

Director of Shared Services

of Baker Hughes, Inc.

Rhonda Klein,

Citibank Client Development

Mike Hostetler,

Commercial Cards Manager

of Baker Hughes, Inc.

Before the introduction of the Citibank®

One Card Program, employees used three

different GM payment cards—for travel, fleet

and purchasing expenses—depending on the

type of business being conducted on behalf

of the company. As a result, managing the

administration of these programs was costly

for GM and cumbersome for employees.

Defeating Awkward, Time-Consuming

Processes

Like many organizations, GM has a large

volume of low-dollar value purchases –– over

500,000 transactions a year that are $2,000

or less. Prior to adopting the Citibank

Purchasing Card in 1995, a purchase order

or purchase order release had to be issued

for virtually all purchases, and the process

had many steps: from invoicing to matching

receipts to manual processing by the

accounts payable department.

For those who used a separate travel

card, charges were billed to individual

employees who often had to wait for

corporate reimbursement after filling out

forms, attaching receipts, getting approval

and then submitting reports. In turn,

corporate travel expense processing was

labor-intensive; all reports were keypunched

into the system and travel transactions

were manually entered into

the general ledger. Outside the

United States, a different bank

issued a travel card for each

country –– making it virtually

impossible to manage overall

corporate travel expenses.

Add to this the over 12,000

company drivers with fleet

cards for gas, car washes and

oil changes. The parameters of

the card forced drivers to fill vehicles at

on-site GM facilities or a limited number of

commercial stations, some of which weren’t

necessarily the most convenient.

A New Way to Go

In 1999, four years after putting their Citibank

Purchasing Card in place and seeing what

our commercial cards program had to offer

first hand, a team from GM Worldwide

Purchasing decided to look at a one card

solution as a way to streamline their entire

payment system. Citibank and MasterCard

were selected based on their ability to meet

several requirements; including global

capability, local currency cards and local

help desks, wide brand acceptance and

extensive ATM network, as well as online

reporting via a third party application.

Flexibility and Added

Control

The one card approach works

using profiles based on merchant

category codes (MCC) and

enables GM to authorize

selected codes related to travel,

purchasing or fleet charges.

If employees are authorized

to use their one card for

purchases only, for instance,

they will only be able to charge items that

fall under the pre-approved categories.

As a result, expense reporting for

purchase, travel and fleet purchases is now

dramatically simplified. To generate an

expense report, employees open a personal

online envelope, review transactions and

move them to an online expense report

created by the system. Out-of-pocket

expenses can easily be added to the report

that is then forwarded to supervisors for

review and approval. For fleet cardholders,

the one card program lets them refuel

anywhere –– not just at their work location

or a limited number of fuel locations.

With this new merchant category code

system, the one card delivers better

control from an auditing standpoint and

eliminates the possibility of personal

As the world’s automotive sales leader since 1931, General Motors Corporation (GM)

employs about 362,000 people globally. Over 60,000 of these employees make purchases,

travel or use a company vehicle.

General Motors Drives

Savings,Cost Efficiency

and Conveniencewith theCitibank® One Card Program

Citibank’s global commercial cards solution

has expanded significantly in Europe and

our international clients will now have the

ability to issue cards to be billed in local

currency that comply with local government

regulations. This solution will also provide

an embedded e-commerce feature, enabling

customers to complete transactions online

with leading enterprise resource planning

(ERP) and business-to-business technology

vendors. As always, we will continue to

provide customer support in whatever

European languages are required.

Specifically, Citibank can help streamline

your global expense management program

by offering:

• Coverage

Global Visa® Commercial Card offerings,

including local country programs in UK,

Germany, Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Ireland,

Netherlands, France, Italy, USA, Canada,

Mexico, Brazil and Singapore. Additional

countries will follow.

• Convenience

Access to a comprehensive array of

payment services through one trusted

partner.

• Control

A single source for contracting, reporting,

relationship management and file delivery

for integration into expense management

systems, e-Procurement and ERP systems.

• Tailoring

VAT accreditation on purchasing

transactions, as well as issuance and

settlement in local currencies in key

European countries.

• Focus

First class customer service from Citibank

employees in local languages.

For more information on Citibank

Commercial Cards Europe, please contact

Vincent Eavis at (44) 207 500 6867 or

Andy Nicholas at (44) 207 508 0224.

In order for multinational corporations

purchases related to travel and

entertainment (T&E) and maintenance, repair and operating goods (MRO)

to remain profitable, the efficient management of both T&E and MRO is

crucial. One way to achieve this is by having a single global payments

solution with capabilities tailored to local country programs –– clearly

the best of both worlds. Citibank offers just that.

charges. All reporting is online so there’s

timely and easy access to card transactions.

Plus, aggregated charges benefit the

corporation by way of purchasing volume

discounts with suppliers and payment cycles,

automatically posting to the general ledger.

For GM overseas, the one card saves the

company money because foreign exchange

fees are eliminated –– translating to a

significant savings for the company. Prior to

adopting the Citibank One Card Program,

GM conducted thousands of transactions

that incurred exchange fees in over 30

countries around the world.

Driving Results

The Citibank One Card Program at General

Motors delivered automation to replace

manual processing and improved efficiency

that has realized big dollar savings. As a

result of the program, significant head

count was re-deployed into more strategic,

value-add roles within GM and millions of

dollars in operating expenses were trimmed

with the program’s North American launch.

With the future global expansion plans

currently in development, GM expects the

program to continue growing –– reaping even

more rewards in terms of cost savings, process

efficiencies, improved order-to-bill pay, enhanced

audit control and ease of use for employees.

TheBest

of Both Worlds

GM article continued…

newscommercialcards

Publisher:

Bridgette Jennings

Citibank e-Business

Marketing

203.975.6087

bridgette.d.jennings

@citigroup.com

Meet Maati Lahroussi,Operations Manager, e-Business

Commercial CardsWith the most talented

team of professionals in

the industry, Citibank

e-Business offers

customers access to

the finest technical and

financial expertise

available ––

like Maati Lahroussi.

Maati’s ability to

communicate, manage

multiple projects and

find the best possible solution to meet the needs of

all involved make him a perfect mediator between

Citibank and our commercial card clients during a

conversion. As an example, in a recent Citibank

Commercial Cards Client Round Table, MasterCard

recommended that no new applications be

processed during the month leading up to the

conversion. As an interim solution to this freezing

period, Maati suggested creating spare accounts

that would allow the bank to continue processing

new applications without interruption.

It is clear from his track record that Maati

strives for excellence in all he undertakes. For

instance, during Citibank’s own Visa® to MasterCard®

card conversion it became clear that the support

network at Citishare was not going to be ready to

handle ATM transactions. Working quickly with all

the major financial institutions, Maati was able to

implement a back-up network solution that ensured

our customers would have

seamless ATM access.

According to Gary

Schneider, Vice

President, Global Business

Management Commercial Cards,

Maati is a natural leader who manages with

confidence and is eager to share his knowledge and

offer guidance when required. “On behalf of the

entire Citibank Commercial Cards team, thank you,

Maati, for your leadership and dedication.” Of this

recognition, Maati says: “My goal is always to

exceed our clients’ expectations. All I’ve

accomplished is due to the ongoing support of senior

management such as Paul Browne, Bruce Poore

and Susan Hoyte, and of course my team.”

“My goal is always to exceed our clients’expectations…”