Citibank on Thursday took disintermediation to a new level, by launching an integrated web-enabled corporate banking e-business solution. It has two components: SpeedCollect 2000, a cash-management platform, and Citicommerce (www.citicommerce.com), a seller-centric e-commerce solution that links companies to their dealer networks.

And this is what the Citibank offering, a business-to-business (B2B) one, will do: it will facilitate dealers -- be they of car or fast-moving consumer goods -- to click on a Citi-installed web site and place orders, raise invoices and settle transactions, all at once. It promises nirvana to all those concerned with supply-chain nightmares. Citicommerce not only enables customers to strengthen their own customer relationships without having to invest in creating e-commerce infrastructure, but also help them reduce their end-to-end management and transaction costs by as much as 75 per cent.

Says Citibank (India) MD (global corporate banking and investment bank) Sujit Banerji: "The launch is a logical and natural extension of our focus to continuously innovate and develop financial management solutions that meet the needs of our customers."

All this is part of Citibank's efforts to increase its fee-based income. The current split-up between the bank's fee-based to interest-income is 60:40, and the ratio is seen growing if not maintained. As Banerji puts it: "It is not a static world."

In recent times, Citibank has made a strategic shift in increasing its exposure to the mid-market. Dealers who hawk top-of-the-line corporate products fit in nicely. Citibusiness will look at small to medium enterprises. It aims to have a 20 per cent market share of this segment, and that includes truck finance, in which the bank claims it ranks fourth behind Sundaram Finance, Tata Finance, and Ashok Leyland.