A card some ‘overspending ministers’ will hate

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The card will allow you to see how much your company or government has spent.

JOHANNESBURG - Imagine being able to know how much your company or government department has spent on travel and entertainment expenses in less than three clicks.

During the 2008 crises both governments and corporates became aware of the importance of liability and expense management systems, which is why according to general manger, for Citi South Africa Donna Oosthuyse "we've decided to launch our commercial card programme in South Africa".

The programme promises head of departments control over spending, streamlining payments and simplifying expense management. Understandably this type of solution is aimed at large corporates but Citi has not excluded government business. Its head of treasury and trade solutions in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Rajesh Mehta says "we do plan to tender for government business and aggressively so."

Should government adopt it, it would make the jobs of both the auditor-general and minister of finance easier.

When either the media or members of parliament ask how much was spent by government ministers on entertainment, hotel stays, including the never ending buffets which accompany every government function, we won't have to wait for weeks sometimes months to get a response from the relevant authorities all that's needed is a few clicks and hey presto we'll have a figure (hopefully modest).

Citi lists as some of the benefits of its card programme a reduction in staff spend in business travel, according to Manish Kohli, head of wholesale cards for EMEA "our solutions provide heads of treasury the opportunity to see how much money their company has spent with a single supplier which enables them to negotiate better terms, ie, you could say from our records we spend a few millions on your service per quarter if you want me [to] spend similar amounts next quarter what discount might you offer me?"

At the moment, Rio Tinto SA division has Citi's corporate card offering . Moneyweb asked Mehta if it was looking to take market share from other players. To which he said, "No, we're not looking to take market share, in fact we believe the size of the pot will grow as trade flows improve both from South Africa and those headed towards the country."

Citi refused to disclose if this commercial card division would be profitable saying it's a scale business not a high margin one. The company believes this is a game changer as Kohli put it "nobody else in this market can do what we do, with the accuracy in which we do it". A bold statement indeed but if it helps both shareholders and taxpayers keep track of their monies and how it is spent or misspent it's a fantastic innovation.

Hopefully we now have a card our "overspending ministers" will hate.

Write to Lindo Xulu: lindo@moneyweb.co.za