By Emily Anderson

Expect Small Businesses to Invest in Growth This Year

By Dustin Greelis-VanLaningham

In the last few years, small businesses ($100K-<$10MM) have become increasingly confident in their finances. Higher expectations for profit, greater average outstanding checking account balances and improved confidence in the U.S. economy all indicate that small businesses are growing more optimistic in 2017. However, not all businesses are in the same business life stage, a factor that can have a large impact on financial behaviors. Growing and developing businesses, in particular, appear to need...

Verticals, Velocity and Value: Deloitte Discusses the New World of Faster Business Payments

By Adam Johnson

At Barlow’s Business Banking Conference in Chicago this year, we were joined by a team of senior-level experts from Deloitte who took the stage during one of the featured conference sessions. During the presentation, Ginger Siegel, a Senior Manager and Ulrike Guigui, Managing Director in the Payments Practice, provided detailed insights from the world of faster payments. During the session, the Deloitte team stressed the importance of innovation in payments for small business banking...

The Role of the Small Business Banker Is Changing

By Joel Mueller

Given the technological advances in business banking, small business customers ($100K-<$10MM in annual sales) are increasingly able to conduct more of their business banking without having to ever pick up the phone or walk into a branch and talk to their business banker. Not only does this make it more challenging to effectively implement a relationship banker strategy in the small business market, but the banker channel often requires an exorbitant amount of resources...

Competing in the New Small Business World: Learnings from the 2017 Business Banking Conference Small Business Panel

By Emily Cade

At the annual Barlow Research Business Banking Conference this year, many discussions put focus on the customer experience and ways in which financial institutions can make business easier for the small business ($100K-<$10MM in annual sales) owner. In the small business banking panel discussion, three financial experts described the customer experience at their three individual institutions. Daniel Haisley of Live Oak Bank, Dan O’Malley of Numerated Growth Technologies, formerly of Eastern Bank, and Joe...

Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citizens Agree: The Account Officer Is the Front Door of the Bank

By Emily Anderson

The Account Officer is a fundamental channel in the middle market (companies with $10MM-<$500MM in annual sales). Barlow Research data from the fourth quarter of 2016 said that 90% of middle market companies have had contact with an Account Officer in the last year, making it the top used channel at the primary bank. This year, at the Barlow Research Business Banking Conference, we invited banking experts to join us to discuss some of...

RBC Breaks New Ground with Small Business Video Banking

By Youa Yang

Fifteen years ago, the best way for a customer to get in touch with his or her primary bank was to walk into a branch or pick up the phone to call someone at the bank. Although the branch still garners the highest levels of usage, and the phone channel is still very much needed, technological advancements widen the capabilities of the financial institution and how they interact with their business banking customers. In fact...

Regions Experienced Improvements in the Small Business Market

By Sandy Hanson

Every year Barlow Research’s annual Small Business ($100K-<$10MM) Banking Report includes competitive intelligence information regarding the Top Eleven small business banks. The Top Eleven order is determined by two-year primary market share in the United States. We are currently finalizing our 2017 Small Business Banking Report, which will be available soon. As we have been digging into the data, we’ve noticed one bank in particular that has seen many improvements from their prior...

View a Candid Interview with Congressman Barney Frank

By Joe Pike

At our recent Business Banking Conference in Chicago, Barlow Research was honored to welcome Barney Frank as our featured speaker. A long-time member of the United States House of Representatives (1981-2013) as a Democrat from Massachusetts, and a former chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank was instrumental in shaping some of the most significant legislative changes ever seen in the financial services sector as a leading co-sponsor of the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010...

Moving to Online Account Opening Solves More Than One Problem

By Adam Johnson

It's an exciting time of year when we're getting ready to publish our Annual Digital Business Banking Report. From an Analyst's perspective, it provides a great opportunity to dig into the new data so we can wrap our minds around what is happening in the digital banking environment. Two areas we're paying close attention to include business DDA account opening and online banking enrollment, as these are areas where we've seen a great deal of...