Citi's Pam Habner on what today's credit card customers want

Habner discusses the rewards credit card customers are seeking today as well as her own views on leadership from her long career in banking.

Transcription:
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Chana Schoenberger (00:10):
Hi, I'm Chana Schoenberger. I'm the editor-in-Chief of American Banker, and I have with me here today Pam Habner, who is the head of Branded Cards and Lending at Citi . Thank you for coming in,

Pam Habner (00:21):
Chana. Such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.

Chana Schoenberger (00:23):
Absolutely. Okay, so just to talk about leadership in the context of the most powerful women in banking, what is the biggest challenge you're facing in your role today and how are you handling it?

Pam Habner (00:34):
I actually think the biggest challenge is simply the pace of change. There is so much going on in the world of financial services, in the global geopolitical environment that keeping ahead of our customers' expectations is our biggest challenge. And so what we do is we stay very close to our customers. We understand what their needs are, how they're evolving. We do deep research, and in that way we're always anticipating their needs and hopefully bringing credit cards and products and services that actually meet their needs and help them live their lives successfully in this ever-changing world.

Chana Schoenberger (01:12):
So what are they asking you for right now?

Pam Habner (01:15):
In the world of credit cards, travel, dining and entertainment are still the top priority. Consumers love to indulge in their passions and they like to use their credit cards as a means, certainly to pay for things, but also to unlock those unique experiences. So in the cards that we design, we offer a range of rewards, but also experiences, whether it's using your card to get a ticket to a once in a lifetime concert with Live Nation, using your points when you're dining out or earning points to transfer to American Airlines to take that dream vacation, we try to fuel all of our customer's passions.

Chana Schoenberger (01:55):
What's your favorite benefit that you guys offer on a card?

Pam Habner (01:59):
It's hard to pick my favorite benefit. It's like choosing from amongst my children. But I would say I think one of our secret sauce is the fact that we stay true to our customer's passion for travel and dining, and we offer on our cards the richest rewards to help them get to that pre-flight, that pre hotel stay faster than any other card in the market.

Chana Schoenberger (02:23):
Okay. What have you learned about leadership in your time as a senior executive that nobody told you when you were junior?

Pam Habner (02:30):
Over the years, I've learned so many leadership lessons, but I think being a successful leader boils down to three key things. The first is having passion for what you do. The second is really having a purpose and knowing why you wake up every day to come to work to serve your customers. And the third thing is perseverance. As I said earlier, times change very rapidly. Unexpected things come our way and we need to be able to be resilient and persevere. So I've learned passion, purpose and perseverance are the keys to leadership and I think to success in business.

Chana Schoenberger (03:10):
There's been a real movement sort of away from the idea that Wall Street is a place of purpose. How would you sell a Wall Street career to a young person maybe just coming out of school? Where's the purpose in doing it?

Pam Habner (03:25):
Wow. I think that financial institutions have a great purpose. Financial institutions fuel the success of individuals, business owners, and even economies. So at Citi, we have a range of financial services. I'm in the US personal banking division, and we wake up every day to power our customers to live the lives that they want. We offer credit cards that help them pay for the goods and services in their life, but also to build credit that then can lead to them saving money through banking, buying their first home through a mortgage, or even getting a loan to start their own business. And of course, we have a very large institutional business that serves multinational companies. And where a Citi really shines is helping multinational companies do business across borders, across nations, and we take great pride in that. So I think a career in financial services is noble. There is a purpose starting with consumers, but going to companies and all the way up to powering economies.

Chana Schoenberger (04:34):
No, it makes a lot of sense. Okay. So you alluded to this a bit before, but when you look at your sector of the industry, what are the major issues that you're facing right now and how are banks managing them?

Pam Habner (04:48):
There is so much change going on right now. So I live in the world of payments, and the payments landscape is changing dramatically. Some of the things that we're thinking about now are ai, agentic commerce is just taking off and we believe will be the next phase of transforming consumer shopping experience on the heels of e-commerce several years ago. So soon consumers will have access to shopping agents that will help them curate goods and services, travel experiences, and even perhaps go so far to execute their payment. So we're working very closely with our partners at Visa and MasterCard and other industry groups to make sure that as payments evolve, consumers are continuing to be safe and secure and rewarded in what they do. Another very interesting development has been the genius act and the growing use of stable coins and cryptocurrency. And so we're very much involved in advocating for our industry, again, to make sure consumers are safe and secure, but that we make our payments available in all those new form factors.

Chana Schoenberger (06:06):
So let's say I were a Citi credit card holder. What would ag shopping or agentic commerce mean for me as a person?

Pam Habner (06:16):
As an individual who may take advantage of an agent, a shopping agent or a travel agent, you could give instructions to that agent to shop for. It could be a dress, it could be for a travel itinerary to Italy. The agent will come back with a range of ideas and the capabilities are tremendous. So the amount of search and knowledge and advice that might be coming your way would far exceed what existed just maybe a year ago. And then as a consumer, you could then choose which one of the options to buy one of 10 dresses presented to you or one of five itineraries to Italy, and then also select the payment that would be best suited to that transaction,

Chana Schoenberger (07:04):
And then the agent would just execute it for me.

Pam Habner (07:06):
Well, that's to be determined. So I think the world of agenta commerce is evolving very rapidly. There are lots of uncertainties. We believe the safest and most secure way would be to a consumer to select their payment option, hopefully a city card at the point of transaction. And for that to be safe and secure. It could be however that the consumer gives an instruction to an agent to actually make a transaction on their behalf.

Chana Schoenberger (07:39):
Wow. Okay. So I know we've written about how Citi is rolling out agents in your own work. How soon will it be before this fantasy is a reality?

Pam Habner (07:49):
These are early days, so I can't really predict when shopping agents and travel agents will really become mainstream, but we do see examples in today's market. So we believe the evolution will be rapid.

Chana Schoenberger (08:02):
So a personal shopper for every American, it

Pam Habner (08:05):
Could be

Chana Schoenberger (08:06):
Amazing. Okay. What keeps you up at night right now? I hope you sleep well, but when you're falling asleep, what do you think about?

Pam Habner (08:14):
When I'm falling asleep, I think about what I can do to make sure that I'm serving. Our card members are more than 30 million card members to the best, that the best that we can. I also worry about things that are happening in the world around me, but there is a lot of uncertainty in the economy today. There's a lot of turmoil in the global geopolitical environment. So these are things that impact our consumers and impact our industry. But what allows me to sleep at night is knowing that Citi has a business resiliency plan in place. We've been through lots of up and downs. We've been through the great financial crisis, we've been through the pandemic. We know how to survive and thrive in good times and in bad. And our approach will always be to lean into any cycle that we have to make sure that we continue to innovate. We continue to invest in the best products and services and brand for our consumers so that when this period of time, once we get through this period of time, we'll emerge stronger and our customers will be better off after.

Chana Schoenberger (09:27):
You must have a tremendous amount of data on what people are spending on. Do you get a sense that this will be a good year for the American consumer?

Pam Habner (09:35):
I think the American consumer is incredibly resilient. We're seeing strong spending behavior amongst consumers. We're seeing actually very disciplined spending and borrowing amongst consumers. So spending is strong. We see consumers after the pandemic spent very quickly back into travel and dining and things that were their passions that they couldn't do. We're seeing the growth in that spend moderate a bit, but still be strong. We're seeing strength and essentials and in discretionary spend. So consumers are resilient. They're spending, but they're also, as I said, borrowing in a very disciplined way. As an industry, we're seeing losses moderate, and so we're very optimistic about the US consumer at this moment and very, very much looking forward to the end of the year with the holiday season, just around the corner.

Chana Schoenberger (10:33):
Great. Well, thank you very much, Pam, for coming in.

Pam Habner (10:35):
Thank you so much for your time

Chana Schoenberger (10:36):
And congratulations.

Pam Habner (10:38):
Thank you. This is an honor to be part of the most powerful women. Thank you to American Banker and thank you to you, Chana.

Chana Schoenberger (10:44):
Absolutely.