Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) are underserved. They are experts in their business and focus on growing it, part of that is gaining access to financial services. In lieu of a single partner that can help them, they’ve opted for several financial providers when it comes to getting access to an account, a loan, a credit card, payment solutions, and the list goes on. The majority of these SMBs struggle to secure financing, and payments let alone have a financial service partner that provides a centralized hub of business insights.
With the advent of fintechs, business owners expect personalized and efficient services. That is why approval ratings are 49% at community banks and credit unions and 25% at larger financial institutions (FIs). In fact, according to Cornerstone Advisors, 94% of the time SMBs get access to pinpointed financial solutions via fintechs rather than the financial situations they work with. The net result is a fragmented sense of their business health. There was once one banking relationship and now, it’s five to eight service providers. This leaves financial services struggling to understand how to increase SMB engagement & retention.
In 2022, fintechs and FIs continue to refer to SMBs as the problem child customer base. SMB is its own channel and should be approached differently. It’s not commercial lite, it’s not a retail plus, and should not be classified as the problem child, especially when it accounts for such a large segment of the market. This year, approximately five million businesses launched, up from three million in 2020, and two million a decade ago. To take advantage of the opportunity, fintechs and FIs must focus on increasing SMB engagement and retention.
“In a turbulent economy, access to data and insights on businesses has never been more important. There are more businesses launching and using more cloud-based systems to gather their data than ever before. They are looking to innovative financial service providers as partners to help them grow.” said Keren Moynihan, CEO of Boss Insights. And to grow, SMBs need accurate and timely insights to make informed business decisions.
Boss Insights’ vision is to move the industry forward by linking fintechs & FIs to their SMB clients’ financial data from accounting, commerce, payroll, and tax applications (eg.QuickBooks, Xero, Stripe, Square, Shopify, Amazon & more). Access to business customers’ financial data empowers FIs to act as financial partners to their business customers. Businesses get real insights to help them grow, and FIs gain a real-time understanding of their portfolios.
Fintechs and FIs have an unprecedented opportunity to utilize financial data to provide a complete financial picture to the historically fragmented SMB segment. Boss Insights’ empowers FIs with a holistic view of their SMB customers for an entirely new understanding of business clients and prospects, complementing traditional decisioning, automating marketing, lending, and payment offerings that complement traditional decisioning and foster nimble cultures within organizations. It’s by providing a complete financial picture of the business that financial service providers can put the ‘serve’ into the service offering by identifying opportunities for growth.