COVID and Digital Innovation in the Banking Industry

Banking in 2020 has seen its share of market-changing events. A global pandemic alongside an exploding fintech market has created a new landscape of digital innovation, allowing banks and their customers to connect like never before.

Some are heralding 2020 as the year of true banking digital transformation (here, here, and here). There are certainly competing views (here), but the ideas are the same — forward-thinking banks are accelerating their digital innovation to meet the perceived needs of their customers.

When it comes to digital innovation, banks certainly have options. In the past few years, we’ve seen a ballooning fintech market with value-added technologies that can address every piece of the customer life cycle, from credit to payments, deposits, and advisory services. Even mega-banks with unlimited resources are jumping into the market to compete with their own custom apps.

But the rest of the banking sector, those community and regional banks with strong small business customer bases and limited resources to develop, is left to wonder where the best place to make a true, competitive impact is.

Our advice — get to know your small business customers and their challenges better. For instance, several well-known SMB issues include:

• 82% of small business failures are due to poor cashflow management
• 61% of small business owners regularly struggle with cashflow
• 69% of owners are kept up at night by concerns about cashflow
• 43% of small businesses have been at risk of missing a payday

How can banks make the biggest difference in the lives of small business customers? Help them with their cashflow. According to a recent 11:FS report, small business customers want banks to help them track and manage their cashflow in a coherent way, and help them make smart and proactive business decisions based on their financial data.

How serious are small business owners about their cashflow? Of a recent survey of 100 small business owners:

• 96% would value a one-stop shop for viewing all of their business activities
• 88% are interested in predictive cashflow features if offered by their bank
• 88% would be interested in seeing insights about their business based on data including aging receivables, loan balance updates, etc.

And the kicker: 74% of small businesses would be interested in moving to a bank that offers these types of tools.

The lesson? Innovations that help small businesses address cashflow concerns will not only retain existing small business customers, but may help to attract new ones.

Say Hello To Monit: Your Mobile Cash Platform

If you are a banker, we’d love to introduce you to Monit, a fully digital and mobile tool that helps your SMB customers improve their cashflow with the latest in smart, predictive technology. This co-branded tool gives your SMB customers a hands-on companion to complement and reinforce your guidance, influence, and product line, resulting in better outcomes and increased engagement.

Monit requires no technology integration, and can be up and running to offer to your small business customers in no time at all. Reach out to us today at hello@signalft.com to learn more!