Citibank relaunches Diners
Citibank is relaunching its Diners Club business in Australia with an advertising campaign that has a strong focus on travellers.The campaign is the culmination of a year of product and systems' development that Citibank has undertaken to bring the Diners Club business up to date.In February, Citibank launched a companion card arrangement, offering Diners Club members a Citibank-issued MasterCard together on the same account. Similar to the companion card arrangements between Amex and the major banks, the Diners' deal offers the high points of a Diners card with the wider acceptance of a MasterCard. It has picked up 5000 new accounts since the launch.In July, it won an Australian Government contract to be its exclusive supplier of travel cards. Citi has transferred the Diners' business to its credit card platform.It has also overhauled its arrangements with the Qantas Frequent Flyer program and will launch a new frequent flyer card in November.And it has upgraded its corporate service, and now promises corporate customers automated reconciliation and enhanced data to cover GST compliance.The head of Diners Club Australia, Richard Wilde, said there was a strong business case for charge cards at the moment. Wilde said: "The move to debit and charge card spending over credit shows that customers want to use their own money. The charge card proposition is that you can use your own money and earn points."Wilde said Citibank had completed Diners' "product evolution" and was ready to relaunch the brand.The local campaign will draw on a global campaign that Diners Club International has been rolling out progressively around the world since 2009. Diners Club's director of global brand and marketing, Janice Alfini, who was in Sydney last week, said the campaign was localised to suit the conditions of each franchise.Two aims of the campaign will be to attract a younger market and to encourage customers to use the card for more of their everyday spending. Diners and Citibank are investing in the "footprint" - signing up more merchants.Citibank sold Diners to Discover in 2008, but kept the Australian franchise.Wilde would not say how many Diners Club cards are on issue in Australia. He said 65 per cent of the business was corporate and the balance was consumer, and he conceded that there had been no growth in revenue in the past few years.