Why Small Business Clients Need Digital Options

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One of the biggest pain points a small business client faces is the time required to apply for a loan or line of credit. Banks can solve this problem by digitizing their small business lending process, and in doing so, they can also reach a broader swath of small businesses, says Steve Allocca, CEO of Funding Circle. Whether a bank chooses to digitize all or part of its small business lending process, leverage emerging technology can make borrowing easier and more accessible to small businesses.

Topics discussed include:

  • Improving Convenience
  • Fully Digital vs. Hybrid
  • Data Privacydo

Tailoring Payments for Small Business Clients

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Financial service firms tend to focus their products and services on large companies, ignoring the small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that make up 99.9% of all businesses in the US.

These businesses are significant players in the economy, driving growth and operating across all industries. While their impact is huge, the financial needs of SMBs are different from big businesses. There is a growing demand for financial institutions to deliver customized and cost-effective digital solutions for these businesses and their customers. A financial institution that succeeds in meeting SMB needs will increase customer retention, attract new clients and strengthen their reputation.

Many financial institutions serve SMB customers through business banking, savings accounts or business loans. Partnering with a vendor to offer payment processing solutions is a low-risk way that banks can provide added value for their business customers, without incurring additional costs. A payment solutions partner can provide end-to-end service — from sales to account management — while the financial institution focuses on its core business. When a customer has multiple services from one institution, that relationship elevates from a transactional one to a trusted, long-term partnership.

Additionally, a merchant services partner may enhance a financial institution’s reputation in areas such as digital technology or diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). For example, a financial institution may highlight its own interest in supporting diverse businesses by choosing a merchant services processor with similar values, attracting new clients seeking a more progressive approach.

One of the biggest challenges faced by SMBs is keeping up with rapid technological changes to meet their own customers’ demands. This is especially true in the payment space, where many customers prefer contactless payment methods. Contactless transactions in the U.S. increased by 150% between 2019 and 2020 and is only expected to grow. Customers want convenience, speed, and choice when they buy. Even as a consumer or business client of an SMB, they are still used to the level of service they get from large companies. Barriers at the checkout level can impact customer satisfaction and loyalty. SMBs risk losing clients if there is an easier way to do business just down the street or on a competitor’s website. Customers may also expect merchants to accept mobile wallets, offer buy now, pay later or point-of-sale lending options and accept cryptocurrency as payment. Unfortunately, SMBs often lack the resources — such as capital, infrastructure, technology and staff — to offer the latest payment options to their customers and run their operations in the most efficient manner.

But a payment partnership allows banks to offer a slew of services to help business customers optimize their time, save money and improve customer satisfaction. For example, SMBs can benefit from an all-in-one, point-of-sale system that accepts multiple payment types, such as contactless, and includes features such as digital invoicing, inventory management, online ordering, gift cards, staffing, reporting and more. It can also give business customers access to real-time payments, seven days a week, that can improve their cash flow efficiency and avoid cash-flow lags — a major concern for many SMBs.

Small and medium businesses represent an untapped market for many financial institutions. If a financial institution starts to offer tailored payment solutions and services that help SMBs overcome their unique challenges, they can unlock significant, new opportunities in the small business segment.

FinXTech’s Need to Know: Cash Flow

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This article is the second in a series focusing on small business banking financial technology. The first covers accounts payable technology and can be found here.

There are 33.2 million small businesses in the United States. With a looming recession, many may soon be looking for ways to lower their budgets, be it by reducing staff, cutting back on hours or even terminating contracts with other vendors. The median small business holds only 27 days of cash on hand, according to a 2016 study from the JPMorgan Chase Institute — an amount that could be challenged by the changing economic state.

Financial institutions should see cash flow management as an opportunity to provide their small business customers with integrated products and services they used to go elsewhere for.

Business owners decide where, when and how to invest and spend revenue after tallying bills, employee hours and balance sheets. They now have modern tools and ways to leverage third-party softwares to automate their balances.

Banks can provide this software to their small business customers, and they don’t have to start from scratch: They can turn to a fintech partner.

Here are three fintechs that could satiate this software need.

Boston-based Centime launched its Cash Flow Control solution in partnership with $26 billion First National Bank of Omaha in 2019. Centime gathers accounts receivable and accounts payable data to provide accurate, real-time forecasts to business customers. Any bank can integrate the solution as an extension of their online banking or treasury management services.

Banks can profit off of these cash flow products, too. Small business customers have access to a direct credit line through the analytics platform. And in a still rising interest rate environment, expanding the lending portfolio will be crucial to a bank. Banks that offer Cash Flow Control to their business customers can play a strategic role in their clients’ cash flow control cycle, gain visibility into their finances and provide streamlined access to working capital loans and lines of credit.

Centime states that it works best with banks with more than $1 billion in assets.

Cash flow solutions can also provide essential insight into current and projected business performance for a bank’s own purposes. Less than 50% of banks said that not effectively using and/or aggregating their data was one of their top concerns in Bank Director’s 2022 Technology Survey. Data segmented into business verticals could shed light into what businesses need from their banks and when they need it.

Monit from Signal Finance Technologies is another cash flow forecasting and analytics solution available to small businesses. Monit aggregates data from the small business’s accounting software, like QuickBooks, Xero or FreshBooks, along with data inputs from the business owner. The projections are dynamic: Business owners can dive deeper into exact factors that influence anticipated dips in cash flow. They can also model alternative scenarios to find ways to avoid the shortfall.

Using the projections, Monit provides business owners with suggestions for the future success of their business, such as opening a new line of credit or slowing down on hiring.

Accessing business data and the third-party apps that house it is another way to strengthen a bank’s understanding of their business clients, as well as indicate how, where and when to help them. UpSWOT’s data portal could be the right solution for a bank looking to gather better data on their business customers and connect with the third-parties that house it.

UpSWOT uses application programming interfaces, or APIs, to collect data from over 150 business apps and provide key performance indicators, marketing data and actionable insights to both bank and business users. It can even notify a bank about a small business client’s activity such as new hires, capital purchases like real estate or vehicles, payment collection and accounts receivable, financial reporting and tax information.

The upSWOT portal also creates personalized marketing and sales dashboard, which bankers can use to anticipate their business clients’ needs before their balance sheets do.

Essential to every single one of the more than 30 million small businesses in the U.S. is cash. And without the ability to effectively forecast and manage it, these small businesses will fail. Banks can help them flourish with the aid of fintech partners.

Centime, Monit and upSWOT are all vetted companies for FinXTech Connect, a curated directory of technology companies who strategically partner with financial institutions of all sizes. For more information about how to gain access to the directory, please email [email protected].

Reimagining Small Business Checking

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If you could start your own bank and design it from the ground up, what would it look like?

And if you’re a business banker with a focus on small business clients, how would your reimagined bank, and its core product offerings, differ from your current ones?

This is the challenge plaguing banks today. For the most part, business banking products have become a commodity — it’s virtually impossible to differentiate your bank’s offerings from the ones being sold by your competitor down the street. For that matter, it may be hard to draw meaningful differences between your various accounts, such as with your retail and commercial offerings. That’s one reason why 27% of business owners rely solely on a personal account. And it’s also why only 38% of small to medium business owners believe that business banking services offer extra benefits compared to their personal account.

One way for banks to break out of this current dilemma may be to shift their focus. This approach is already working for fintech challengers. Instead of focusing solely on transactional products or in-person services, they worked on understanding customer workflows and solving digital pain points. In the process, they have captured the imagination and the pocketbooks of small business owners.

If your bank has prioritized small business customers, or plans to, the best way to make this shift is by focusing on the business owner. Start with this simple question: What do you need from your bank to make meaningful progress with your business?

Their response likely won’t have anything to do with your existing products or services. Instead, they may share a problem or pain point: I need help tracking which customers have paid me and which have not.

There’s no mention of products or account features like fees, balance requirements and e-statements. A response like this reminds us of the quote popularized by Harvard Business School Professor Theodore Levitt: “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.”

In our case, it goes something like this: Business owners don’t want a list of transactional ranges, fees or digital banking tools. They want to know if their bank can help them better track and accept customer payments, so they can maximize their time running their business.

Increasingly, the process of accepting payments is moving from in person to online. But when small business owners turn to their financial institution for assistance, the bank lacks a simple solution to meet this fundamental need.

This leaves the business owner with four options for moving forward — options that require either minimal involvement or no involvement from a bank.

  1. If a small business decides that it’s not worth dealing with cards, they can simplify their receivables by only accepting cash and checks, closing themselves off to customers who prefer to pay in other ways.
  2. If a small business decides to accept credit cards, it can accommodate more paying customers, but must now track payments across bank statements (for checks) and external payment tools (for credit cards).
  3. If a small business relies on external invoicing or accounting tools, it can invoice and accept digital payments, but must now track payments across multiple platforms and reconcile those funds back to its bank account.
  4. If a small business consolidates all of its financial needs with one provider like a fintech challenger, they can resolve the complexity of dealing with multiple tools and/or platforms but lose out on the expertise and high-touch support of a business banker.

The two middle options involve a bank at the outset but can often lead to reduced deposits over the long term. Over time, fintech challengers may disintermediate banks by offering similar, competing products like integrated deposit accounts. The fourth option, born out of frustration, removes the bank entirely from the relationship.

Clearly, no option listed above is ideal. Nevertheless, it is still possible to help the business owner make progress with accepting digital payments. And, even better, there is an emerging  solution for small business owners that may lie with your most straightforward business product: your small business checking account. Watch out for part two to learn more.

How Nonbank Lenders’ Small Business Encroachment Threatens Community Banks

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A new trend has emerged as small businesses across the U.S. seek capital to ensure their survival through the Covid-19 pandemic: a significantly more crowded and competitive market for small business lending. 

Community banks are best-equipped to meet the capital needs of small businesses due to existing relationships and the ability to offer lower interest rates. However, many banks lack the ability to deliver that capital efficiently, meaning:

  • Application approval rates are low; 
  • Customer satisfaction suffers;  
  • Both the bank and small business waste time and resources; 
  • Small businesses seek capital elsewhere — often at higher rates. 

When community banks do approve small credit requests, they almost always lose money due to the high cost of underwriting and servicing them. But the real risk to community banks is that large players like Amazon.com and Goldman Sachs Group are threatening to edge them out of the market for small business lending. At stake is nothing less than their entire small business relationships.

Over the past few years, nonbank fintechs have infiltrated both consumer and business banking, bringing convenience and digital delivery to the forefront. Owners of small businesses can easily apply for capital online and manage their finances digitally.

Yet in 2018, only 11% of small banks had a digital origination channel for small business lending. In an age of smartphones, community banks still heavily rely on manual, paper-based processes for originating, underwriting and servicing small business loans. 

It was no surprise, then, when Amazon and Goldman Sachs announced a lending partnership geared toward third-party merchants using the retail giant’s platform. Soon, invited businesses can apply for a revolving line of credit with a fixed APR. Other major companies like Apple and Alphabet’s Google have also debuted innovative fintech products for consumers —it’s only a matter of time before they make headway into the small business space.

A 2016 Well Fargo survey found that small business owners are willing to pay more for products and services that make their lives easier. It makes sense that an independent retailer that already sells on Amazon would be more inclined to work with a lender that integrates directly into the platform. If your small business lending program isn’t fully online, customers will take the path of least resistance and work with institutions that make the process easier and more seamless.

Serving small business borrowers better
The issue isn’t that small businesses lack creditworthiness as prospective customers. Rather, it’s that the process is stacked against them. Small businesses aren’t large corporations, but many banks apply the same process and requirements for small credit requests as they do for commercial loans, including collecting and reviewing sophisticated financials. This eliminates any chance of profit on small credit requests. The problem is with the bank’s process — not its borrowers.

The solution is clear cut:

  • Digitize the lending process so customers don’t have to take time out of their busy day to visit a branch or speak with a loan officer. Note that this includes more than just an online application. The ability to collect/manage documents, present loans offers, provide e-contracts and manage payments are all part of a digitally-enabled lending process.
  • Incorporate SMB-specific credit criteria that accurately assess creditworthiness more effectively, like real-time cash flow and consumer sentiment.
  • Take advantage of automation without giving up control or increasing risk. For example, client notifications, scoring and application workflow management are all easy ways to save time and cut costs.
  • Free up lending officers to spend more time with your most-profitable commercial customers.

These changes can help turn small business customers into an important, profitable part of your bank. After all, 99% of all U.S. businesses are considered “small” — so the ability to turn a profit on small business lending represents significant upside for your bank. 

With better technology and data, along with a more flexible process, community banks can sufficiently reduce the cost of extending capital to small businesses and turn a profit on every loan funded. Next, banks can market their small business loan products to existing business customers in the form of pre-approved loan offers, and even gain new business customers from competitors that push small business borrowers away. 

Think about it: small business customers already have a deposit relationship at your bank. Community banks have this advantage over the likes of Amazon, Goldman Sachs, Apple and others. But when time is limited, small businesses won’t see it that way. By rethinking your small business lending process, it’s a win for your bank’s bottom line as well as a win in customer loyalty.

Texas Strong: Banks Contend With Dual Threats

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“Texas has four seasons: drought, flood, blizzard and twister.” – Anonymous

To that list of afflictions you can add two more — the Covid-19 pandemic and a catastrophic collapse in global oil prices, creating double trouble for the Lone Star State.

There were over 50,500 coronavirus cases in Texas through May 20, an average of 174 per 100,000 people, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. There were nearly 1,400 coronavirus-related deaths in the state.

In mid-March, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott imposed restrictions that limited social gatherings to 10 people or less, and effectively closed close-proximity businesses like restaurants and bars, health clubs and tattoo parlors. Even as Abbott reopens the state’s economy, many of its small businesses have already been hurt, along with many lodging and entertainment concerns.

“Shutting down the economy was probably a good health decision,” says F. Scott Dueser, chairman and CEO at $9.7 billion First Financial Bankshares in Abilene, Texas. “It wasn’t a good economic decision.”

And then there’s oil situation. An oil price war between two major producers — Russia and Saudi Arabia — helped drive down the price of West Texas Intermediate crude from over $60 per barrel in January to less than $12 in late April, before rebounding to approximately $32 currently.

Texas still runs on oil; while it is less dependent on the energy sector than in past cycles, its importance “permeates” the state’s economy, according to Dueser. “It is a major industry and is of great concern for all of us,” he says.

The 65-year-old Dueser has been First Financial’s CEO since 2008, and guided the bank successfully through the Great Recession. “I thought I’d be retired by the next recession but unfortunately, we weren’t planning on a pandemic and it has come faster than I thought,” Dueser says.

This downturn could be as bad or worse as the last one. But so far, damage to First Financial’s profitability from the combined effects of the pandemic and cheap oil has been minor. The bank’s first quarter earnings were off just 2.6% year over year, to $37 million. Like most banks, First Financial has negotiated loan modifications with many of its commercial borrowers that defer repayment of principal and/or interest for 90 days.

Dueser won’t know until the expiration of those agreements how many borrowers can begin making payments, and for how much — clouding the bank’s risk exposure for now. But with a Tier 1 capital ratio over 19%, Dueser has the comfort of a fortress balance sheet.

“We unfortunately have been down this road before … and capital is king because it’s what gets you through these times,” he says.

Dueser made a decision early in the pandemic that as much as possible, the bank would remain open for business. It encouraged customers to use branch drive-thru lanes, but lobbies have remained open as well.

“So far we have been very successful here at the bank in staying open, not locking our doors, not limiting hours, keeping our people safe and at the same time serving more customers than we ever have in the history of the bank,” Dueser says.     

The bank has followed Covid-19 safety requirements from the Center for Disease Control. “The most important things are don’t let your people come to work sick and social distancing,” Dueser says. “We split every department, such as technology, phone center, treasury management and so on with having half the department work from home or from another one of our locations. That way we had only half the people here, which allowed us to put people in every other desk or cubicle.”

To date, the bank has had only four Covid-19 cases among its employees. “Thankfully, all four of those individuals are healthy and back at work,” Dueser says. “With each situation we learn more on how to protect our employees and customers.”

Dueser is one of 39 people on a task force appointed by Abbott to advise him on reopening the state’s economy. “I am very supportive of what he is doing, in the fact that we are getting the state back open,” he says. “The virus is not winning the war, which is good. We have a lot to learn so that we can live with the virus without having to go home and hide in a closet.”

One of Dueser’s biggest priorities through the economic hardship was to make sure retail and commercial customers knew that it would stand by them, come what may. That led to a recent marketing campaign designed around the phrase “Texas Strong,” a slogan used throughout the state that traces back to Hurricane Harvey, which devastated Houston in 2017.

“We want our customers to know that we’re safe, sound and strong,” says Will Christoferson, the bank’s senior vice president for advertising and marketing. “What’s stronger than Texas? We couldn’t think of anything.”

Beyond PPP: Supporting Small Business Through the Covid Crisis

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In the first wave of the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, West Des Moines, Iowa-based Bank Iowa Corp. closed around 400 loans totaling $72 million, according to CEO Jim Plagge. When we spoke — just a few days before the SBA re-opened the portal for another $320 billion of PPP loans — the $1.4 billion bank was prepared to submit another 75 or so applications.

The bank’s branch teams — which are split to encourage social distancing and minimize the impact if someone were to get sick — have also taken to ordering takeout every day to support local restaurants that have been particularly hard hit. “[We’re] just trying to support them,” he says.

This desire to support the 23 communities it serves inspired Bank Iowa’s “Helping Hand” program, which is accepting nominations to assist local organizations, small businesses and nonprofits. The bank’s goal is to serve at least one need in each of its seven regions. “We’re only as strong as the communities we serve,” says Plagge. “So, we’re just trying to help where we possibly can.”

Banks play a vital role in supporting their communities, one we’re seeing played out across the country as bankers put in extra hours to help customers, especially small businesses that keep towns alive. Bank Iowa, like many financial institutions, recognizes that supporting small businesses can’t be limited to the SBA program — PPP loans have proved difficult to obtain, and they don’t make sense for some companies that still need help.

Bank Iowa reached out immediately to borrowers to understand the impact of the coronavirus crisis for each one, says Plagge. The bank has deferred loan payments, restructured debt and set up working capital lines. Bankers have also been a shoulder to cry on.

“[We’re] trying to be there to help our clients talk through the difficulties they’re facing,” says Plagge. “Hopefully we can offer some advice and encourage them along the way.”

Relationships matter. “We typically see that business banking account managers get good scores for being courteous, knowledgeable and responsive,” says Paul McAdam, a senior director, regional banking in the financial services practice at J.D. Power. Small business owners will be even more sensitive to their banker’s response in today’s desperate environment, asking: “‘Do I feel like I’m connecting with them? Do they understand my needs and what I’m going through right now?’”

In addition to building long-term relationships, supporting small businesses now could help banks reduce later damage to their loan portfolios. But unfortunately, tough decisions will be required in the coming months. Plagge says Bank Iowa has started stress testing various sectors. With agriculture comprising a significant portion of the loan portfolio, they’re examining the impact of a reduction in revenue for ag producers.

“Our goal will be to try to work with every borrower and see them through this,” Plagge says. “But we also know that may not be possible in every case.”

David K. Smith, a senior originations consultant at FICO, advises banks to segment their portfolio, so lenders understand which businesses they can help, and which pose too great a risk. Does the business have a future in a post-Covid economy? “You can only help so many without sinking your portfolio,” he says.

But banks should also look for ways to keep relationships alive. “As small businesses go out of business, there’s an entrepreneur there … that person who lost this company is going to be on the market creating another company soon,” says Smith.

After the crisis, this could lead to a wave of start-up businesses — which banks have typically hesitated to support. “They’re going to have to rethink policy, because [of] the sheer number of these that are going to pop up,” says Smith. Some businesses won’t fail due to poor leadership; they simply couldn’t do business in an abnormal environment, given shelter-in-place and similar orders issued by local governments. “Bankers will have to appreciate that to a certain degree and figure out a solution, because it will help bring the economy back faster,” he says.

Data In The Best, And Worst, Of Times

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Helping their community and delivering personalized service is the foundational differentiation of every community bank. Now more than ever, customers expect that their community bank understands them and is looking out for their best interests.

Customers are communicating with their banks every day through their transactions — regardless if they are mobile, in person or online, each interaction tells a story. Are you listening to what they’re telling you? Whether your bank is navigating through today’s COVID-19 crisis or operating in the best of times, data will be key to success today and in the future.

Business intelligence to navigate daily operations is hard to come by on a good day, much less when things are in a pandemic disarray. Many bankers are working remotely for the first time and find themselves crippled by the lack of access to actionable data. A robust data analytics tool enables employees at all levels to efficiently access the massive amounts of customer, market, product, trend and service data that resides in your core and ancillary systems. Actionable data analytics can empower front-line bankers and risk managers to make data-driven decisions by improving and leveraging insight into the components that affect loan, deposit and revenue growth. Additionally, these tools often do the heavy lifting, resulting in organizational efficiencies that allow your bankers and executives to focus on strategic decision-making — not managing cumbersome data and reporting processes.

A tool that aggregates transformative data points from various siloed systems and makes them readily available and easy to interpret allows your management team to be better prepared to proactively manage and anticipate the potential impact of a crisis. This positions your bank to offer products and services that your customers need, when they need them.

But most community banks have not implemented a data analytics solution and as such, they  must consider how to manually generate the information needed to monitor and track customer behaviors to assist them in navigating this crisis. Below are a few potential early warning indicators to monitor and track as your bank navigates the current coronavirus crisis so you can proactively reach out to customers:

  • Overdrafts, particularly for customers who have never overdrawn.
  • Missing regular ACH deposits.
  • Past due loans, particularly customers who are past due for the first time.
  • Line of credit advances maxing out.
  • Lines of credit that cannot meet the 30-day pay-down requirement.
  • Declining deposit balances.
  • Large deposit withdrawals.
  • Businesses in industries that are suffering the most.

If your community bank is one of the many that are proactively assisting customers during this pandemic, make sure you are tracking data in a manner that allows you to clearly understand the impact this crisis is having on your bank and share with your community how you were able to help your customers during this critical time. Some examples include:

  • Paycheck Protection Loan Program details: number of applications received, processed and funded; amount forgiven; cost of participating for the bank; customer versus non-customer participation, impact on lending team, performance.
  • Customer assistance with online banking: How did you help those who are unfamiliar with online banking services? How many did you assist?
  • Loan modifications, including extensions, deferments, payment relief, interest-only payments and payment deferrals.
  • Waived fees and late charges.
  • Emergency line of credits for small business customers.

Having easy access to critical customer information and insights has never been more important than it is today, with the move to remote work for many bankers and rapidly changing customer behaviors due to the economic shutdown. Customers are making tough choices; with the right data in your bankers’ hands, you will have the ability to step up and serve them in ways that may just make them customers for life.

Seven Small Business Lending Trends In 2020

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There are roughly 5.1 million companies that comprise the small to medium-sized business (SMB) category in the U.S. today — and that segment is growing at 4% annually. Many of these businesses, defined as having less than 1,000 employees, may need to seek external funding in the course of their operations. This carves out a lucrative opportunity for community and regional banks.

To uncover leading trends and statistics, the Federal Reserve’s 2019 Small Business Credit Survey gathered more than 6,600 responses from small and medium U.S.-based businesses with between 1 and 499 employees. These are the top seven small business lending statistics of 2019 — along with some key insights to inform your bank’s small business lending decisions in 2020.

1. Revenue, employee growth in 2018
The U.S. small business landscape remains strong: 57% of small businesses reported topline growth and more than a third added employees to their payrolls. Lending to these companies isn’t nearly as risky as it once was, and the right borrowers can offer an attractive opportunity to diversify your bank’s overall lending portfolio.

2. Steady rise in capital demand
Small businesses’ demand for capital has steadily risen: in 2017, 40% of surveyed businesses applied for some form of capital. In 2018, the number grew to 43%, with no drop-off in sight. Banks should not wait to tap into this lucrative trend.

3. Capital need
With limited and/or inconsistent cash flow, small businesses are almost bound to face financial hurdles. Indeed, 64% of small businesses said they needed capital in the last year. But when seeking capital, they typically find many banks turning their backs for reasons related less to credit-worthiness, and more to slimmer bank margins due to time-consuming due diligence.

As a result, over two-thirds of SMBs reported using personal funds — an outcome common to many small businesses owners. This is a systemic challenge, with a finding that points to an appealing “white space” opportunity for banks.

4. Capital received
Too many small businesses are settling for smaller loans: 53% of small businesses that sought capital received less funding than they wanted. Banks can close this funding gap for credit-worthy small businesses and consistently fill funding requests by decreasing the cost of small business lending.

5. Funding shortfalls
Funding shortfalls were particularly pronounced among specific small businesses, with particular credit needs. Businesses that reported financing shortfalls typically fell into the following categories:

• Were unprofitable
• Were newer
• Were located in urban areas
• Sought $100,000 to $250,000 in funding

Of course, not all small businesses deserve capital. But some shortfall trends — like newer businesses or those in urban areas — may suggest less of a qualification issue and more to systemic barriers.

6. Unmet needs
Optimistic revenue growth paired with a lack of adequate funding puts many viable small businesses at unnecessary risk. The survey found that 23% of businesses experienced funding shortfalls and another 29% are likely to have unmet funding needs. Capitalizing on these funding trends and increasing small business sustainability may well benefit both banks, businesses and communities in the long run.

7. Online lenders
Online lending activity is on the rise: 32% of applicants turned to online lenders in 2018, up from 24% in 2017 and 19% in 2016. The digital era has made convenience king — something especially true for small business owners who wear multiple hats and are naturally short on time. Online lending options can offer small business owners greater accessibility, efficiency and savings throughout the lending process, especially as digital lending solutions become increasingly sophisticated.

A Long-Term Approach to Credit Decisioning

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Alternative data doesn’t just benefit banks by enhancing credit decisions; it can help expand access to capital for consumers and small businesses. But effectively leveraging new data sources can challenge traditional banks. Scott Spencer of Equifax explains these challenges — and how to overcome them — in this short video. 

  • The Potential for Alternative Data
  • Identifying & Overcoming Challenges
  • Considerations for Leadership Teams