When it comes to the relationship between banks and small businesses, it goes much beyond the simple functions like opening a business account, getting a payment card or taking loans.
Apart from offering advice on areas like tax planning, retirement accounts, insurance, payroll management, creating financial documents and managing cash flow, 21st century banks are also coming out with personalised products and solutions for SMEs.
In today’s article, we will talk about six such banks.
Chase Bank
JPMorgan Chase Bank, popularly known as Chase Bank, is the consumer and commercial banking subsidiary of the American multinational banking and financial services holding company, JPMorgan Chase. It offers full-service banking tools and premium checking facilities for small businesses.
Chase Bank, which is currently serving over five million businesses in the United States, provides excellent credit card solutions for small businesses. They also offer business checking accounts, business credit cards, business lending starting from USD 5,000, lines of credit starting from USD 10,000, commercial real estate loans, Merchant services and express loans.
JPMorgan will soon start digital payroll processing, for which it has picked San Francisco-based fintech player Gusto as the technology partner. JPMorgan also has fintech features like a Square-like credit card reader for small businesses and early direct deposit for consumers.
Bluevine
“Apply in minutes for no monthly or overdraft fees and unlimited transactions,” states California-based Bluevine, which since its formation in 2013, has amassed over 400,000 customers across all 50 American states and provides over USD 13 billion in financing to small businesses.
The venture has specialised itself in capital financing, invoice financing, business lines of credit, term loans, business checking accounts, and small business banking.
The digital-only bank also provides high-yield checking accounts and international payments for its client businesses.
Recently, after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic Bank, Bluevine has issued a protective mechanism for its customer deposits through a network comprising Coastal Community Bank and 17 other FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) member banks.
Intergiro
The Stockholm-based Intergiro is designing financial infrastructure for innovators and change-makers to build, adapt and thrive for a ‘brave new interconnected world’.
Intergiro helps its client businesses to embed payments into the latters’ systems and products.
Established in 2017, the venture offers business accounting, payment management, payment card services, automation of financial operations and fully integrated merchant services via API, which covers its entire payment value chain, and is backed by Swedish electronic money (EMI) license.
In March 2023, Banking as a Service (BaaS), along with its partner and Swiss payment solution Retreeb, announced the launch of the latter’s sustainable payment solution.
Axos Bank
The American federally chartered savings and loan association, which is headquartered in California, provides digital business accounts to its clients (with little to no fees).
Talking about Axos’ ‘Small Business Banking’, the client SMEs can maintain a minimum average daily balance of USD 10,000 for the first months after the account opening.
No initial deposit/minimum balance requirements, no monthly maintenance fees, unlimited domestic ATM fee reimbursements, up to 60 items per month for ‘Remote Deposit Anywhere’, two reimbursed domestic wire fees per month and cash deposits via MoneyPass and AllPoint networks are the key facilities the SMEs get.
Wells Fargo
The American multinational financial services company has been ramping up its support ecosystem for the SMEs recently, when it comes to funding and ensuring positive cash flow for the small businesses, granting them business card rewards, simplifying balance sheet basics, and providing merchant services.
The American multinational bank helps its clients to create a cash flow projection, where the latter can identify potential cash shortfalls (and surpluses), a crucial ability which helps the SMEs to maintain their healthy growth and strong sales.
In 2022, Wells Fargo announced a USD 1.5 million grant to ‘How Women Lead’, a movement which was aimed at disrupting the unequal venture capital system for women business founders. The grant is estimated to help inspire 10,000 women to invest with venture capital for the first time, ultimately building a USD 1 billion fund.
Be it protecting SMEs’ trademarks, copyrights, and patents or meeting their payroll and needs of Human Resources, Wells Fargo has emerged as a one-stop solution for SMEs in recent days.
Grasshopper
Established in 2019, the venture has disrupted the venture capital sector by emerging as a client-first digital bank built for the business and innovation economy, apart from providing leading-edge technology, solutions-driven products and superior service to small businesses, start-ups, and the investors supporting them across the innovation economy.
Grasshopper claims to have the best digital business checking account in the United States, where the client business can earn up to 2.25% APY (Annual Percentage Yield) and 1% cashback. They also don’t require paying monthly fees, apart from conducting unlimited transactions from the checking account. Opening the account takes as little as five minutes.
Under its ‘Digital First’ approach, Grasshopper lets its client SMEs schedule bill payments, generate invoices, automate bookkeeping, deposit checks and manage cash flow, everything digitally.
Apart from helping its client SMEs revamp their operational facilities and refinance their debt, Grasshopper also helps ventures to create virtual debit cards instantly for in-person contactless payments or online purchases. The card also ensures fee-free withdrawals at over 37,000 MoneyPass and in more than 8,500 SUM ATMs across the United States, apart from providing 1% cashback on online and in-store signature-based purchases.