Citigroup Closing Down Its Online Money Transfer Service - GoFuckYourself.com

KRL · 10-02-2003, 11:21 AM

Citigroup Closing Online Money Service

NEW YORK - Citigroup Inc. is shuttering its c2it online money-transfer service as of Nov. 9, according to the c2it.com Web site.

The unit was launched three years ago to compete with PayPal, the online payment service owned by Web auction giant eBay Inc.

C2it didn't do enough business to justify the costs of running it, according to Citigroup.

"You needed critical mass to keep it as a standalone business, and we felt it wasn't profitable to do so," Citigroup spokeswoman Maria Mendler said Wednesday.

After it became clear that the domestic person-to-person payment market was largely limited to the online auction world, the bank decided to focus its efforts on marketing the service, housed within the credit-card unit, for global money transfers, the spokeswoman said. However, that never really took off, either. Money-transfers can still be done through the retail bank.

Gregory Smith, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, wrote that "The demise of c2it follows a string of failed online payment mechanisms, which have been unable to compete given PayPal's early success and dominance in online auction payments."

Smith said PayPal had only a handful of significant competitors left, including PayDirect, a cooperative effort between Yahoo! and HSBC; Western Union's BidPay; and CheckFree's Auction Payments.

Smith said he believes c2it had more than 350,000 accounts, but never truly gained traction with users, due to PayPal's dominance.

Dusen · 10-02-2003, 11:23 AM

Good use of "critical mass"

10-02-2003, 11:21 AM	#1
KRL Entrepreneur Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: USA Posts: 31,429	Citigroup Closing Down Its Online Money Transfer Service Citigroup Closing Online Money Service NEW YORK - Citigroup Inc. is shuttering its c2it online money-transfer service as of Nov. 9, according to the c2it.com Web site. The unit was launched three years ago to compete with PayPal, the online payment service owned by Web auction giant eBay Inc. C2it didn't do enough business to justify the costs of running it, according to Citigroup. "You needed critical mass to keep it as a standalone business, and we felt it wasn't profitable to do so," Citigroup spokeswoman Maria Mendler said Wednesday. After it became clear that the domestic person-to-person payment market was largely limited to the online auction world, the bank decided to focus its efforts on marketing the service, housed within the credit-card unit, for global money transfers, the spokeswoman said. However, that never really took off, either. Money-transfers can still be done through the retail bank. Gregory Smith, an analyst at Merrill Lynch, wrote that "The demise of c2it follows a string of failed online payment mechanisms, which have been unable to compete given PayPal's early success and dominance in online auction payments." Smith said PayPal had only a handful of significant competitors left, including PayDirect, a cooperative effort between Yahoo! and HSBC; Western Union's BidPay; and CheckFree's Auction Payments. Smith said he believes c2it had more than 350,000 accounts, but never truly gained traction with users, due to PayPal's dominance. __________________ If you would like to develop your domains, you can lease inexpensive foreign labor from the leaders in the field at iWebmasters.com TO LOWER YOUR COSTS AND INCREASE YOUR PRODUCTION! * * * * * * * * * * * * Domains Adult News KRL's Newsletter Biz Tips Just Listed Domains

10-02-2003, 11:23 AM	#2
Dusen Confirmed User Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: East Coast. Posts: 2,251	Good use of "critical mass" __________________ Penis Pill Sponsor List and Reviews: http://www.pillsponsors.com