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U.S. Bank is building its small business relationship around the way owners run their businesses

  • U.S. Bank is using its new Business Essentials cards to deepen its small business relationship, tying rewards to deposits while connecting spending with broader financial workflows.
  • The overarching strategy is to pull more fragmented small business activity – from expenses and payroll to payments and cash flow – into one banking relationship.
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U.S. Bank is building its small business relationship around the way owners run their businesses


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    U.S. Bank is building its small business relationship around the way owners run their businesses

    The super-regional bank wants a bigger share of small businesses’ financial activity.


    A credit card gives a bank a closer look at how its small business clients run their day-to-day operations. The transactions reveal spending patterns, recurring costs, employee activity, and how the business manages its cash. U.S. Bank is increasingly building its small business strategy around this broader view of the customer relationship.

    The bank’s two new cards, the U.S. Bank Business Essentials Visa Card and U.S. Bank Business Essentials Plus Visa Signature Card, are the latest additions to its small business strategy that has expanded well beyond checking accounts and loans. The cards offer unlimited 2% cash back on everyday business purchases, while the Plus card adds 5% cash back on a top spending category, up to $200,000 annually. Both can earn additional cash back when paired with qualifying balances in a U.S. Bank business checking account.

    “Our goal is to build long-lasting relationships with small business owners through integrated solutions, not simply give them a card,” Courtney Kelso, U.S. Bank’s Senior Executive VP of Payments, Consumer, and Small Business, said in the press release.

    From products to workflows

    U.S. Bank has used the past couple of years to expand beyond individual small business products and build around the workflows that connect them.

    In 2025, …


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