How to crack the code to serve small businesses well

by. Dianna Morton

We all know that small businesses are very important to financial institutions, since they provide more profitable relationships than consumer accounts. But here’s the problem: More than three-fourths of all small businesses (21 million) have no employees, operate out of the owner’s home and have less than $500,000 a year in revenue. So it’s hard to know who these business owners are and how to service them.

Many small businesses look and act like consumers to their financial institutions. The owners use their consumer accounts because it’s convenient — and they don’t know what small-business banking products can do for them. But if you can discover these business owners, you can provide the products and services they need to be successful.

Payments and account control/security are big pain points for small businesses.

25 percent of small-business online banking users view entitlements as a very important or top-priority solution.¹ Plus, we’ve found that 71 percent of customers strongly agree that entitlements save them time by delegating online banking tasks to others, and 71 percent say that entitlements make them feel more secure about giving others access to accounts.²

70 percent of small businesses consider ACH and wires to be an important functionality for online banking.¹ 65 percent of all small-business payments are electronic, and this percentage is expected to grow as small businesses get more access to the right products.

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