U.S. Bank’s Shruti Patel on the future of SMBs and how the bank is positioning itself to align with their needs

At the outset of 2024, small business owners expressed optimism regarding their operations and the broader economy.

As we reach the end of the first quarter, Shruti Patel, Chief Product Officer for the Business Banking Segment at U.S. Bank, shares her insights on the anticipated developments and trends that will influence the small and medium-sized businesses [SMBs] landscape throughout 2024. 

Patel also explains how U.S. Bank is adapting its approach to serve the evolving needs of SMBs in the coming months.

SMB banking & payments trends: “Small businesses are relying more and more on software to run their businesses efficiently – for example, in processing payments, making payments to their employees and vendors, and accessing cash flow tools for working capital management. 

These trends will continue in 2024. Further, as small businesses continue to use these software, financial firms will gain a deeper, fuller understanding of their needs to help us better serve them,” said Patel.

How is U.S. Bank enabling this trend? In the last 5 years, U.S. Bank has made deliberate investments in converging business banking tools with access to software, in particular with their acquisitions of fintechs talech and Bento, according to Patel. 

Talech is a point-of-sale system, delivered through talech Register, Terminal, and Mobile, and provides a comprehensive suite of tools for payment processing, customer management, inventory tracking, staff scheduling, and banking operations. This integrated software and hardware solution streamlines operational and financial tasks for small businesses.

“Creating this type of efficiency with tools that are easy to use takes a lot of operational burden off the owner so they can focus on what they love most – making their customers happy,” noted Patel.

For instance, the talech platform can facilitate order management, table tracking, employee timekeeping, sales analytics, inventory monitoring, gift card management, and promotional campaigns for restaurants. Additionally, the platform can also assist landscapers in expediting payments while on-site and enables brick-and-mortar retailers to manage their in-store operations through a comprehensive point-of-sale system, Patel explained.

“We recently signed a partnership agreement with a leading fintech for a new software-led AP/AR product we expect to announce later this year. We have several other software-led products in the pipeline for the second half of 2024 to provide a full suite of back-office software with our banking solutions for small businesses.

I am really excited about several product launches we have planned for this year. I can’t share details yet but they will bring to life our strategy to deliver a fully integrated suite of banking + payments + software solutions for our clients,” she said.