Leni Doyle
July 8, 1999
510/763-9800

Susan Weeks
718/248-7580


CITIBANK TAKES INITIAL STEPS TOWARDS INSTALLING "TALKING ATMS"

Oakland, CA July 8, 1999 - Citibank and the California Council of the Blind
announced today that Citibank has agreed to pilot test "talking" automated
teller machines ("ATMs") at five Citibank locations in California. This
initiative will place Citibank at the forefront of the banking industry by
testing ATM machines that can be used more effectively by persons with vision
impairments.  

During the pilot test, the talking ATMs will provide audible prompts to
assist persons, who cannot read information on an ATM screen, in using the
machine for basic transactions, such as depositing money, withdrawing cash,
transferring funds between accounts, and obtaining account balance
information. The Citibank ATMs will guide the user through these transactions
by means of a talking screen reader - technology that speaks audibly about
what the sighted user sees on the screen. Citibank's technical staff
developed the method for using the screen reader that will be tested on the
five California machines.  

The pilot program is scheduled to last six months. Citibank will install
talking ATMs at three Citibank Bay Area locations and two Citibank financial
centers in Los Angeles by October 1, 1999. Based on the results of the pilot
testing, Citibank, the California Council and individuals with vision
impairments who were involved in the discussions leading to today's
announcement will formally discuss a plan for placing talking ATMs across the
country.  

The screen reader technology to be piloted at the Citibank financial centers
is the same technology Citibank has made available on its internet home
banking service - Direct Access. "We develop and implement technology to make
the lives of our customers easier and banking more convenient for the
communities we serve," said Ed Horowitz, Senior Corporate Officer of
Citigroup and head of the e-Citi unit which developed the innovative
technology. "Adapting screen reader technology to ATMs is a logical evolution
in our effort to work with our visually impaired customers." "We appreciate
Citibank's willingness to work together with the blind community to come up
with an innovative way to allow blind and low vision customers to use touch
screens," said Catherine Skivers, the president of the California Council of
the Blind, an affiliate of the American Council of the Blind, with 46
chapters statewide. Skivers said she was "optimistic that the pilot test will
result in a national agreement to install talking ATMs across the country."
Steven Mendelsohn, one of the participants in the discussions and a
technology policy analyst and disability rights advocate, said, "This
agreement holds promise as a first step toward making greater access to
banking services a reality for people who are blind or vision impaired. We
hope that the success of this pilot will lead other institutions to emulate
Citibank in making ATMs and other information terminal and transaction
machines available to all users." 

The agreement announced today resulted from a collaborative effort that began
when members of the blind community approached Citibank to discuss how the
company's ATMs could be programmed to communicate audibly with blind and low
vision consumers. Lawyers for the blind community in these discussions were
Linda M. Dardarian of the Oakland law firm of Saperstein, Goldstein, Demchak
& Baller, Berkeley disability rights lawyer Elaine B. Feingold, and the
Berkeley-based Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund. 

