Giving customers greater control over their first names can build trust and loyalty for financial institutions, while presenting a relatively minor technical hurdle.  

A whopping 70% of transgender and nonbinary individuals say their legal identity doesn’t match their current chosen name and Citi will now make it easier to reflect people’s personal choices. On Monday, the bank announced that it will now allow customers to assign a preferred first name to their debit cards, in accordance with Mastercard’s True Name program.  

The policy affects a person’s name across their cards and in Citi communications, though the bank still needs to collect legal first names for “know-your-customer,” security purposes. While expanding this policy is not a huge technological challenge (it essentially adds an additional data field and requires training for staff, according to one expert), it is still not widespread practice among financial services institutions.  

“This is one more way for us to help our customers to be their most authentic selves when banking with Citi,” head of US retail banking Craig Vallorano said in a statement to Insights Distilled. 

Meanwhile, a spate of neobanks is using True Name capabilities and other features to set themselves apart by appealing to LGBTQ customers.