1. news I N S I D E
General Motors Drives
Savings, Cost Efficiency
and Convenience
The Best of Both Worlds
Meet Maati Lahroussi,
Operations Manager,
e-Business Commercial
Cards
commercialCitibank
®
e-Business Purchasing & Corporate Cards
Electronic Account
One 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.

2. 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 the
Citibank
®
One Card Program

3. 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.
The Best
of Both
Worlds
GM article continued…

4. news
commercial
cards
Publisher:
Bridgette Jennings
Citibank e-Business
Marketing
203.975.6087
bridgette.d.jennings
@citigroup.com
Meet Maati Lahroussi,
Operations Manager, e-Business
Commercial Cards
With 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…”