This news is very encouraging for banks and consumers around the world. It’s great to see banks taking steps to give their customers as much control as possible over their account. At the moment it sounds like this will only be used for credit card accounts, but where this type of technology really has potential is when it is implemented across a customer’s full range of accounts with the bank.

It will be interesting to see how much this system is integrated into the fraud prevention process within the bank. Alerts, such as SMS messages, can be a very valuable tool to contact a customer immediately and in an unobtrusive manner if a suspicious transaction is made, or attempted. If that alerting process is two-way (for example enabling the customer to reply to say STOP if it isn’t them making that transaction) fraudsters can be stopped immediately, and all future transactions can be blocked.

By empowering their customers in this way, banks can reassure them that they take fraud prevention very seriously and are committed to their protection. This example from Citi is encouraging and I’m sure we’ll see more roll-outs of this kind over the next few years as banks adapt to their customers' demands.